President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said Russia should create its own national payment settlement system, in a bid to reduce economic dependence on the West amid the controversy over Moscow's seizure of Crimea.

"In countries such as Japan and China these systems work, and work very well," Putin told lawmakers in televised remarks.

"Initially, they started out solely as national systems limited to their own markets, their own territory, their own population but they are becoming more popular right now."

"Why should we not do it? We should definitely do it and we will do it," he said, noting that Russia's Central Bank and the government have been looking into the matter.

Last week the United States hit more than 20 Russian officials, including some of Putin's closest allies, with sanctions over Moscow's takeover of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine. A lender described as a "crony bank" for the Russian elites, Bank Rossiya, was also blacklisted.

As a result of punitive measures, several banks last week saw their customers barred from using Visa and MasterCard credit cards, prompting talk among officials and lawmakers that Russia should create its own operational network.

"It's a great shame that some companies have taken a decision on certain restrictions," Putin said.

"I think it will simply lead to a loss of certain segments of the market for them, and a rather profitable market at that."

Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Wednesday that the government had no plans so far to jettison Visa and MasterCard.

"But at the same time we are beginning to pay more attention to the creation of our own payment settlement system," he said in televised remarks.

The nuclear fuel carrier Pacific Egret slipped into the harbor at Charleston, South Carolina, on March 19 and unloaded a top-secret cargo at the port's Naval Weapons Station.

Fitted with naval guns, cannons and extensive hidden means of repelling a terrorist assault, the three-year-old British vessel was purpose-built to transport plutonium, highly enriched uranium (HEU) and mixed-oxide (MOX) nuclear fuel on the high seas.

Its previous publicly reported position had been exiting the Mediterranean at the Strait of Gibraltar almost two weeks earlier on March 7, carrying a delicate nuclear cargo loaded at the La Spezia naval base in northern Italy.

As the vessel entered the North Atlantic that day, its tracking image vanished from an online marine traffic monitoring system. The ship the size of a football field became all but invisible to unauthorized eyes.

Questions are now being raised about whether the sensitive cargo included recycled plutonium that originated here in Canada.

The clandestine business of transporting shiploads of fissile nuclear materials between nations rarely comes into public view. An eight-kilogram piece of plutonium-239 the size of a grapefruit could obliterate much of Ottawa in seconds - as it did to Nagasaki in August 1945. It's aptly named after the ancient Greek god of the underworld.

When an interviewer recently confronted Vladimir Putin about Europe's American-made missile defense system, the President of the Russian Federation couldn't help but laugh right in his face.


According to the journalist, NATO's missile defense system is pointed at and designed to protect Europe from the nuclear threat posed by Iran, not Russia.

Putin's reaction is a must-see.

Interview: NATO claims the missile shield was not built against you but against Iran.

[Putin begins laughing almost uncontrollably]

Putin: You really make me laugh. God bless you because it's almost time to finish the day... indeed it's already time to go to sleep. At least I get home in good humor.

What's even more humorous is the seriousness of the interviewer's subsequent reaction to being laughed at.

It seems that he actually believed the notion that NATO built its missile defense shield to protect from Iran, a country which, according to U.S. intelligence reports, has yet to develop not only the nuclear technology, but the inter-continental ballistic missile systems capable of delivering such technology all the way from Iran.

The propaganda on both sides is actually pretty funny considering how ridiculous the back and forth posturing has gotten, especially in recent months.

What won't be funny is when Europe, Russia, China and the United States eventually use it to facilitate entry into a global conflict involving billions of people.

The British Army has blown up live pigs - some wearing body armour - as part of attempts to improve battlefield medical techniques, Freedom of Information requests have revealed.

Some 115 animals were killed in three years at the Ministry of Defence's secret Porton Down base in Wiltshire.

The pigs were killed to see whether they could be saved despite suffering "severe battlefield trauma" and to test blood-clotting products, the Mirror newspaper reported. Pigs are genetically quite close to humans.

Mimi Bekhechi, director of animal welfare group PETA UK, said: "The UK military's involvement in the cruel and archaic exercises is impossible to justify medically, ethically or educationally.

"It's time for the military to end its participation in these inhumane and ill-conceived exercises for the sake of both our fighting forces and animals.

Lawyers for accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev asserted Friday that his older brother and alleged accomplice had been encouraged by the FBI to be an informant and to report on the Chechen and Muslim community, according to court records.

"We seek this information based on our belief that these contacts were among the precipitating events for Tamerlan's actions during the week of April 15, 2013, and thus material to the defense case in mitigation," the lawyers said in their court filing.

"We base this on information from our client's family and other sources that the FBI made more than one visit to talk with Anzor [his father], Zubeidat [his mother] and Tamerlan, questioned Tamerlan about his Internet searches, and asked him to be an informant, reporting on the Chechen and Muslim community.

Ukraine has the champagne corks popping for the "green line and beyond" lobbyists

Most Americans know very little about the immediate origins of the crisis in the Ukraine and their government's involvement in it. They know even less about its deeper roots, that reach back into Russian view of American duplicity in breaking its verbal promises not to expand NATO and the European Union eastward (useful summaries can be found here and here). These promises were interpreted quite reasonably by the Russians as a quid pro quo for Mikhail Gorbachev's agreement to (1) the unification of Germany, (2) the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, and (3) the withdrawal of Soviet forces from eastern Europe. Gorbachev's dream of a common European Home was always fanciful, but today, Ukraine proves it is in tatters.
If one is to believe the reportage in the mainstream media, the duly elected but decidedly corrupt government of the Ukraine was overthrown by a spontaneous revolt of the freedom-seeking Ukrainian people. But it is also clear from leaked recordings of phone conversations and the bloviations of U.S. "pro-defense" legislators that members of the U.S. government were at least tangentially involved, as were Ukrainian neo-fascists.

There is much more, however. This article by investigative reporter Steve Weissman is Part 1 in a series of reports detailing the nature of that involvement in the current crisis. It should be read carefully, because Weissman reveals a mind-boggling maze of tentacles reaching deeply into the Ukrainian regime change gambit.

Even if half his facts are wrong, Weissman proves a lot of hidden agendas are in play. There is one highly convenient coincidence he only alludes to, however: The American people are war weary, and the pivot to the China threat has no real traction. The domestic politics of fear unleashed by 9-11 are running out of steam. The possibility of a new cold war with our old nuclear armed adversary is just the ticket needed to rectify the situation by bringing back the politics good wholesome fear that evolved so productively for the American pro-defense nomenclatura during the 40 years of permanent mobilization for Cold War.

Militants in Syria opened fire on chemical weapons containers in the Cyprus port of Latakia. The incident occurred as they were being loaded onto Danish and Norwegian vessels for further disposal at sea, the Permanent Syrian Representative to the UN, Bashar Jaafari, announced on Friday.


He added that, since the start of the chemical disarmament operation, Syrian terrorists have carried out five attacks against convoys delivering chemical weapons to Latakia.

"This is not the first time it's happened, but this time it is a very serious concern, as fire was opened on the chemical containers in the port of Latakia, where they were loaded onto ships, " said Jaafari. The diplomat said that he has notified the Security Council about these incidents, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, his deputies, Jan Eliasson and Jeffrey Feltman, as well as the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Angela Kane.

According to Jaafari, Syrian authorities have evidence that militants were behind the attack. " It's a fact, we have videos, witnesses, " he said.

As was stated by the permanent Syrian representative, the attack on Latakia was carried out by "the same terrorists who came from Turkey through the border town of Kasab" which was captured by militants from the extremist groups "Dzhabhat An-Nusra" and "Ahrar al-Sham" this week and turned into a war zone.

Bashar Jaafari accused the Turkish authorities of helping to organize an attack on Kasab and its surroundings. "Someone must make the Turkish government responsible for these disturbing incidents," he said.

The lawless actions of Ukraine's nationalists have finally caught attention of the intl community, with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton denouncing Right Sector for its 'pressure' and 'undemocratic' demand of the interior minister's resignation.

A day after neo-Nazi activists who helped bring the acting government in Kiev to power turned against it, Ashton has issued a statement condemning the "pressure by activists of the Right Sector who have surrounded the building of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine."

This "intimidation" the EU foreign policy chief believes, stands against all "democratic principles and rule of law," as Ashton called on the ultra-right group "to refrain from the use or threat of violence."

Ashton stressed the need to "hand over any unauthorised arms to the authorities immediately."

At the same time she welcomed the "impartial and credible investigation into the circumstances of the death of Aleksandr Muzychko," whose death in a police shootout led to the latest showdown outside the parliament in Kiev.

The US Embassy in Kiev and the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine also issued a statement 'condemning' the Right Sector tactics at the Verkhovna Rada.

Despite mounting concern over human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia, the subject was not introduced in a meeting between US President Barack Obama and Saudi King Abdullah on Friday, according to a US official.

In a meeting at the 89-year-old king's lavish residence at Rawdat Khuraim, northeast of the capital, Riyadh, Obama and Abdullah met for more than two hours. Much of the conversation focused on Iran and Syria, leaving no time to raise human rights issues, Reuters quoted an official as saying.

"Today, given the extent of time they spent on Iran and Syria, they didn't get to a number of issues, and it wasn't just human rights," the official said.

Human rights groups had urged Obama to mention a controversial new anti-terror law in the Saudi kingdom that any act that undermines the security of the state may be treated as an act of terrorism. The legislation comes as Saudi leaders look to increase their grip on power following the "Arab Spring" that swept away many autocratic regimes in 2011.

"The new law is draconian in spirit and letter, and there is every reason to fear that the authorities will easily and eagerly use it against peaceful dissidents," said Adam Coogle, a researcher at Human Rights Watch.

A Kuwaiti man considered to be a senior adviser to former Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was found guilty by jury Wednesday morning in New York City of conspiring to kill Americans.

The man, 48-year-old cleric Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, now faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Federal prosecutors for the United States government argued at trial that Ghaith worked within the top ranks of the terror group and assumed the role of a spokesman of sorts, appearing in propaganda videotapes released in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks orchestrated by Al-Qaeda.

Ghaith admitted on trial to being summoned personally by bin Laden in June of 2011, and later took the Al-Qaeda leader's daughter as an additional wife several years after 9/11. In the interim he appeared in videos released by the organization, including one where he warned Americans that "the storm of airplanes will not abate."

''The defendant committed himself to Al-Qaeda's conspiracy to kill Americans, and he worked to drive other people to that conspiracy," Assistant US Attorney John Cronan said during closing arguments on Monday, the Boston Globe reported.