On the fake-'progressive' (actually conservative-Democratic-Party) website that's run by a longtime CIA asset Markos Moulitsas, Daily Kos, there was posted on February 24th an article by 'motocat', headlined, "I have personally been to a closed door corporate Clinton speech. This is what I experienced."

This person, he or she, didn't indicate what the speech said, other than "how disappointing the whole thing was," and, that it was a speech by Bill Clinton, not Hillary Clinton, and "It made me feel sort of sad to see how old and feeble he looked. The last time I had seen Bill speak was when he was running for his first term as President. He looked like a different man."

Then the author went into speculation about what might be in Hillary Clinton's speeches:

"Everyone wondering what Hillary possibly could have said in 30 minutes that was worth 250K is missing the point. These people are celebrities. They are booked to deliver paid speeches, because it benefits those who book them in some way. You might as well ask what Kanye West could possibly say in 45 minutes at Madison Square Garden that would be worth 250K to the promoter.

I have no doubt that Hillary does not want to release the transcripts of those speeches because those pouring through them for a gotcha news story or to prove a point, will surely find praise for the institutions she was speaking on behalf of. In this political climate, that would be a bad news cycle for her. I also have no doubt that she also showered glowing praise on the countless colleges whose commission speeches she spoke at, as well as praised the accomplishments of whatever non-profit she spoke on behalf of. Does anyone really think her speech to the US Green building council in 2013 was fair and balanced about negative aspects of what the Green building council has done? No. These are performances for a purpose.

Federal prosecutors for the first time Friday disclosed allegations of sexual misconduct against former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, saying the accusations should be considered when he is sentenced later this month in a criminal case connected to alleged hush-money payments.

According to a court filing by prosecutors, the sexual abuse took place decades ago when Hastert was a wrestling coach and teacher at Yorkville High School before being elected to Congress. Prosecutors detailed sexual encounters with teenage boys, which included inappropriate touching and having oral sex, for which the statute of limitation has expired.

"The actions at the core of this case took place not on the defendant's national public stage, but in his private one-on-one encounters in an empty locker room and a motel room with minors that violated the special trust between those young boys and their coach," prosecutors wrote.

Five years after NATO's Libya war, Italy, the EU and the US are in the advanced stages of preparations for the next military intervention. The Western imperialist powers want to establish their own military bases in Libya in order to control the country's massive sources of oil and natural gas, and secure an important gateway to Africa.

For months, the North African country has seen a secret build-up of American, British, French and Italian agents and officers, while reconnaissance and armed drones controlled from Sigonella in Sicily have conducted surveillance missions and air strikes in Libya.

Last week, the EU and US moved forward with the installation of their puppet regime in Tripoli. The designated government leader, Fayiz as-Sarraj, left his exile in Tunisia on Wednesday by ship and arrived in the Libyan capital at the head of a nine-member-strong government delegation. As-Sarraj is a front man built up by German UN negotiator Martin Kobler, and has been tasked with demanding an official military intervention at the United Nations as soon as possible against ISIS forces in Libya.

As-Sarraj, a 54-year old architect from Tripoli, has been dispatched to form a so-called government of national unity. He has returned to a deeply-divided and ruined country, in which at least two governments and five militias are conducting a bloody civil war. As-Sarraj can at most rely on the half-hearted support of a section of the internationally recognised parliament which is currently located in Tobruk in the east of the country.

Egypt has handed two disputed Red Sea islands over to Saudi Arabia as part of an agreement that is going to be presented to parliament for ratification, Al-Arabiya news channel reported.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia agreed to maritime borders that handed ownership of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir over to Riyadh, an Egyptian cabinet statement said on Saturday.

"This enables both countries to benefit from the exclusive economic zone for each, with whatever resources and treasures they contain," the statement said.

The border delimitation agreement will be submitted to parliament for ratification.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has announced that he had resigned, local media reported Sunday.

"I decided to resign from the post of Ukraine's prime minister. On Tuesday, April 12, the decision will be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian parliament]", Yatsenyuk said as quoted by Ukrainian TV channels Sunday.

Yatsenyuk said that destabilization in Ukraine is "inevitable," if a new government is not formed.

"We cannot allow one thing [to happen] — the destabilization of the executive power during the war [in the southeastern region of Donbass]. This prospect is inevitable, if after the resignation, a new government is not formed."

"Since now, I see my goals broader than the powers of the government head."

After liberating Palmyra from terrorist group Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), Syrian forces are now preparing a similar operation for the country's second-largest city, Aleppo, according to Syrian PM Wael al-Halaki. Russia is to assist, he added.

"We, together with our Russian partners, are preparing for an operation to liberate Aleppo and to block all illegal armed groups which have not joined or [which have] broken the ceasefire deal," Wael al-Halaki said Sunday, as cited by TASS.

As the journalist Wolfgang Bauer reminds us, the Syrian people witness the horrors of the Paris and Brussels attacks every single day

The most relevant newspaper cartoon on the asylum story popped up on the front page of The Irish Times this week, for Martyn Turner's sketch caught two scandals in one.

On the left hand side was a rich businessman stepping onto a palm-fringed island under the caption: "Since forever, RICH people have been taking their assets offshore to avoid tax..." On the right hand side of the cartoon, refugees in a flimsy rubber boat sail across choppy seas beneath the words: "Since recently POOR people have been taking their assets offshore... Guess which problem we have worked day and night to stop?"

Well, of course, it's the poor guys who are getting the chop - courtesy of an annual €3bn to the Turks and an easy visa for anyone from Izmir to Iskanderia who wants to take a look at the EU which the refugees risked their lives to reach.


It's not just that - nor the clever-clogs way in which the EU packed its first boat of returnees with Pakistanis who don't quite qualify for our pity, and thus couldn't be seen on our television screens as refugees fleeing for their lives.They all went meekly aboard, guarded by the blue legions of Frontex, that least accountable of all border institutions the EU has yet invented. I'm sure they're all gentle lads and lasses, but why on earth do they wear these preposterous hygiene masks over their faces when confronted by refugees?

A recent Amnesty International report sounded the alarm on a "blood mineral" mined by Congolese children as young as seven and used in rechargeable lithium-ion batteries found in laptops, smartphones and even electric cars.

The mineral is cobalt, and more than half of the world's supply comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, including at least 20 percent which is mined by so-called "artisanal miners" in the southern part of the country. The report, titled "This Is What We Die For," explains the conditions these miners work in:

"These artisanal miners, referred to as 'creuseurs' in the DRC, mine by hand using the most basic tools to dig out rocks from tunnels deep underground. Artisanal miners include children as young as seven who scavenge for rocks containing cobalt in the discarded by-products of industrial mines, and who wash and sort the ore before it is sold."

The most unusual aspect of this week's 'Panama Papers' scandal was the appearance of the Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson alongside the West's favourite 'bad guys', Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.

Iceland rarely makes world headlines and for most people this was probably the first time they had ever seen the country's Prime Minister. There is a good reason for the corporate media's obstinate disinterest in Iceland over the past few years: the country recovered from the financial crisis by jailing 29 corrupt high-level bankers and has refused to pay foreign bondholders since the 2008 financial crisis devastated its economy.

Iceland managed to do this because it had control over its own currency and a government with enough national pride to risk defying the global financial powers-that-be.

Marxists have often made the distinction between two types of capitalists - the "national bourgeoisie" (a class of capitalists linked to domestic manufacturing), and the "comprador bourgeoisie" (linked to international finance). Although the schema is far from exact, one could argue that this inter-class antagonism is at play here. The "national capitalists" under Gunnlaugson coming into conflict with the "comprador elites" of global finance capitalism.

"Antiques" with a declared value of $26 million have been imported to the United States from Syria since 2011, when the civil war there began, according to documents that the U.S. Census Bureau provided to Live Science.

It's not clear what, exactly, the antiques actually are, nor whether the items were illegally brought here or where the money from any sales is going. Their age is also unclear. In most cases the documents say only that they are "antiques" that are more than "100 years old," although occasionally a shipment of coins is identified.

The documents say that the bulk of them are brought to New York City where numerous antiquities dealers, art galleries and auction houses are based. Whether or not the antiques are resold after arriving in New York is unclear.