Militants from the notorious ultranationalist organization Right Sector have taken it upon themselves to become the de-facto police force in a section of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, with local security organs seemingly powerless to stop them.

Ukrainian media report that the militants, armed with baseball bats and other blunt objects, wearing balaclavas and featuring the distinctive red-black badges on their army fatigue uniforms, have organized themselves into 'patrols' in areas surrounding the rail terminal, located in the west-central portion of the city.

With the city's transport police presently absent, facing reorganization, the militants have subjected the district to systematic terror, roving the streets, attacking suspected wrongdoers, and organizing group raids on businesses and shops.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is set to announce snap elections later on Thursday, according to state broadcaster ERT. The move comes after Athens managed to pay a huge piece of its debt - €3.4 billion ($3.79 billion) - to the ECB.

Numerous sources earlier speculated that the snap elections may be held in September (13 or 20), other spoke of October, after all the scheduled repayments to international lenders are through.

Local media have been speculating about the possible upcoming announcement since Thursday morning.

Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos, in particular, told ERT that this time the election "will not be the same as those of 2012, because now there is agreement, and there is a framework for the recapitalization of banks."

An unnamed Greek official, when asked by journalists if Tsipras could announce snap elections in coming hours, said "everything is possible", Reuters reports.

As you're no doubt aware, the Fed is fond of using the research departments at its various branches to validate policy and analyze away bad economic outcomes. For instance, earlier this year, the San Francisco Fed came up with an academic justification for the now infamous double seasonally adjusted GDP print - they call it "residual seasonality." Then there's the NY Fed, where researchers recently took to the bank's blog to explain why, despite all evidence to the contrary, Treasury liquidity is "fairly favorable."

Be that as it may, someone will occasionally say something really inconvenient - like when, back in April, the St. Louis Fed warned that the American Middle Class was "under more pressure than you think," a situation the bank blamed on the diverging fortunes (literally) of the haves and the have nots in the post-crisis world. The implication - made clear in the accompanying graphics - was that QE was effectively eliminating the Middle Class.

Now, the very same St. Louis Fed (this time in the form of a white paper by the bank's vice president Stephen D. Williamson), is out questioning the efficacy of QE when it comes to stoking inflation and boosting economic activity.

Brandon Martinez of Non-Aligned Media revisits a March 2015 scandal which exposed a direct connection between the Harper regime in Ottawa and its purported enemy, 'ISIS', and how the Canadian and Western mainstream media refused to follow up on it.

South Korean military shelled the North's border area in response to an apparent earlier shelling from the North.

South Korean military fired dozens of artillery shells across the border on Thursday, the Yonhap news agency reported. The attack came in response to apparent shelling of the southern part of the border area by the North's military.

"A barrage of supposedly North Korean military shells was detected by (South Korea's) anti-battery radar" at 3:52pm, a ministry official said as cited by the agency.

Earlier the South Korean Defense Ministry said shelling from across the border was detected by counter-battery radar, but that the South didn't return fire.


No casualties or damage on the ground was reported after the alleged shelling from the North. However, South Korea ordered the evacuation of civilians from the border area to the west of the Korean Peninsula, where the incident happened. According to the KBS broadcaster in South Korea, the North's shells targeted a military loudspeaker that has been broadcasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda across the border. North Korea has repeatedly demanded the removal of such loudspeakers, calling them provocative.

Despite attempts by the Washington administration to impose anti-Russian views on ordinary people in the US, the American nation is not the enemy of Russia, says Maria Zakharova, the Foreign Ministry's official representative.

In a recent interview with popular Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda, Zakharova said that in her opinion the United States as a nation was not hostile to Russia. "The USA is not Obama. The USA is the people who populate the country. The problem lies in the fact that the current US authorities are trying to impose anti-Russian sentiments on their people," she said. "But the USA as a nation and Americans as a people are not our enemies."

Reporters also asked Zakharova to comment on Barak Obama's statement that the Russian economy was in tatters, made in the State of the Union Address in January this year.

"I am very surprised by the fact that the head of a state, who considers himself a civilized person, is proud of doing harm to other people. I have always thought that we should be proud of doing good to people," Zakharova answered. "This is the first time I've ever seen something like this in the history of modern diplomacy," she added.

Shadowy pockets of the financial sector, NGOs and charities are increasingly vulnerable to "terrorist financing abuse" as lone actors seek to unleash domestic terror attacks, a British analyst says.

Tom Keatinge, director at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Center for Financial Crime and Security Studies, argues the West's strategy for disrupting terrorist financing is short-sighted.

In a piece of analysis published on Monday, the ex-City of London banker said the world's most pressing "terrorist finance risk" lies closer to home than Western counter-terror policy acknowledges.

Keatinge argued operations to disrupt terror-related financial flows presume the illicit funds' sources are located in some far-flung destination, but in reality may are rooted in the West.

The ex-financer, who joined RUSI in 2014, says growing evidence suggests "so-called lone actors" are seeking to unleash terror attacks in their home countries.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and his US masterminds plan to resolve the Donbass issue, bypassing the Minsk accords negotiated to bring peace. Donetsk republics Defense Ministry spokesman Eduard Basurin said Ukraine's forces had attempted to breach militia defenses in the Mariupol direction on August 10 using large-calibre guns, tanks and mortars. Kiev's preparation for the offensive is confirmed by Poroshenko's law signed on Tuesday on increasing defense spending by $250 million. Ukraine's military expenses in 2015 already reach $5.5 billion. The US has promised to allocate another $500 million to finance the training of Ukraine's military divisions and the Pentagon plans to train a total of five battalions. Meanwhile, Ukraine's Deputy Defence Minister Petro Mekhed has not ruled out that another three waves of mobilization may be held.

On August 14th, John McCain had the opportunity to visit the Navajo Reservation, to honor the code talkers of World War Two. However, his visit would quickly turn sour as he was confronted by dozens of Apaches and Navajos, protesting his role in passing a last minute provision to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2015, as well as changes to their tribal water rights. The Southeast Arizona Land Exchange Bill would allow mining interests to build the largest North American copper mine on the Oak Flat campgrounds, an area of spiritual and historical significance to the Apache people.

While meeting with Navajo officials at the Navajo Nation Museum in Window Rock, Arizona, he was confronted by 17 year-old Adriano Tsinigine during a photo shoot. The teenager held a card which read "Protect Oak Flat." The Senator's smile quickly disappeared as he pushed the card back to Adriano and told him to leave.

[Editor's Note: This article describes a dynamic we have covered before: After the US suffered its major setbacks with Crimea's secession and the Novorossiya uprisings, they needed the EU and Russia to help re-manage part of the situation. So much for 'F*ck the EU', and Nuland's attempt to alienate other interested parties. Poroshenko was an optimal compromise candidate; he was someone that the Three Powers involved could more or less live with. The US and Russia both have mechanisms at their disposal to push Poroshenko in various, often contradictory, ways. This article helps to explain why the Russians saw Poroshenko as someone they could minimally work with - J. Flores]

Experts: Part of the Russian governing class is closely connected with Poroshenko

Visible manifestations of Russia's support for the Ukrainian economy and, as a result, the Kiev regime, are really there. But on the question of how much they are capable of significantly affecting the economic situation in Ukraine, experts' opinion diverge. Many political analysts, writers, and simply indifferent observers, blame the Russian government, convicting it of evil intent in their aspiration to maintain good relations with the West, by protecting the Kiev authorities who are waging war against the rebellious Donbass.

So by what ways and, above all, for what is Russia, albeit indirectly, contributing to the maintenance of the positions of the hostile powers of the puppet and criminal Ukrainian "elite?"

Granting discounts on gas and electricity supplies at preferential prices

In order to justify here the policy of "Gazprom," the argument can be made that, first of all, Ukraine is a transit territory for Russian natural gas, and attempts to establish an alternative path of transit have thus far been unsuccessful. The objective reality is such that, dependent on resource exports, Russia is compelled to make concessions. The second argument is a concern for the "brother Ukrainian people" which, of course, it is impossible to regain due to the unhealthy actions of the leadership of Ukraine.

But, given that the bills for the population as a result of Russian discounts in Ukraine do not at all decrease, and social policies are not gravitating to be wider encompassing, this argument also appears unconvincing. Moreover, experts notice that discounts on gas are one of the most important areas of unofficial support for Kiev from Russia's side.

In the case of electricity, it's also possible to reference the dependent status of Crimea on Ukraine on this question. The peninsula is currently 70% dependent on Ukrainian electricity. In the words of the Minister of fuel and Energy of Crimea, Sergei Egorov, the peninsula could independently provide for basic energy needs by 2018, when private energy generation will reach 950 MW per day.