I have to admit that today's move by Putin caught me completely off-guard. My first impression was that by asking the folks in the Donbass to postpone the referendum, Putin was basically tossing aside a valuable bargaining chip. Even more disturbing was his apparent backing for the upcoming May 25th presidential election.

Let me also say, however, that the notion of Putin "caving in" never even crossed my mind if only because categories such as "caving in" are simply not applicable in the real world of international politics - they are only good for the talking heads on the Idiot Tube and their zombified audience.

But if Putin was not "caving in" - what in the world was he doing? I submit that what Putin did is give us his reply to yesterday's quiz. Remember what I wrote?

Let us assume that Russia does not intervene and that, with time and effort, the nationalists regain control of most of the eastern and southern Ukraine. Let is further assume that the referendum wanted by the Russian-speakers is either not held or ignored, while the Presidential election goes ahead and that Poroshenko or Tymoshenko get's "kind of elected" in a farcical election which, however, the USA and its EU protectorate will immediately recognize as "legitimate".

This is *exactly* the option chosen by Putin today. To see why, we have to look at this not from Moscow's perspective, but from Kiev's perspective. From the point of view of the junta this outcome looks something like this:

"So we have managed to get most of the East and South more or less under control. We have stopped the 'terrorists'' referendum and we got our leader Oligarchenko elected President in an election fully backed the US and Europe. What do we do next?"

This is when things get really interesting for a number of reasons. For one thing, the economy is completely dead and nobody, really nobody, has any idea as to what to do about it. Second, the degree of hatred between the western Banderastan and the eastern Donbass is at an all-time high and nobody has any idea as to how to make all these people coexist together. Third, and there are a lot of signs in Kiev and elsewhere that this is already beginning to happen, social unrest triggered by the economic collapse is going to go from bad to worse with each passing week. Fourth, now that the neo-Nazi thugs do not have a "patriotic" job to do anymore - what kind of "activities" will keep them busy next?

BP claims businesses not harmed by the 2010 oil spill have collected hundreds of millions of dollars

BP claims that $500 million of the money it set aside to compensate victims of its 2010 oil spill has been awarded to businesses that don't deserve it. Among the unwarranted claims, says BP, were an escort service in Florida, a surgical practice 300 miles from the spill and a wireless phone company that burned to the ground before the spill occurred. Scott Pelley reports the latest twist in this story that began with an oil rig explosion that killed 11 and polluted the Gulf of Mexico with over 200 million gallons of oil. Pelley's report will be broadcast on 60 Minutes, Sunday May 4 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

"Those are all real examples and are, frankly, not exceptions, but rather emblematic of a far larger problem," says BP Vice President Geoff Morrell. "There are more than a thousand claims just like them that had glaring red flags associated with them that should have been picked out by the claims administrator and instead, were ultimately awarded more than $500 million."

Such claims are the result of a new, more lenient compensation agreement BP signed. The oil giant was trying to avoid years of litigation and uncertain outcomes; now the company believes it's being defrauded. The new agreement caught the attention of compensation lawyers who wooed victims with pitches like this highly emphasized line in a flyer: "THE CRAZIEST THING ABOUT THE SETTLEMENT IS THAT YOU CAN BE COMPENSATED FOR LOSSES THAT ARE UNRELATED TO THE SPILL."

"I think that's fraud," says BP Attorney Ted Olson. "We want to compensate legitimate claimants, but this here's an incentive to encourage people to commit fraud and that is wrong."

The United States is quietly expanding the number of intelligence officers in Iraq and holding urgent meetings in Washington and Baghdad to find ways to counter growing violence by Islamic militants, U.S. government sources said.

A high-level Pentagon team is now in Iraq to assess possible assistance for Iraqi forces in their fight against radical jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a group reconstituted from an earlier incarnation of al Qaeda, said two current government officials and one former U.S. official familiar with the matter.

The powerful ISIL, which seeks to impose strict sharia law in the Sunni majority populated regions of Iraq, now boasts territorial influence stretching from Iraq's western Anbar province to northern Syria, operating in some areas close to Baghdad, say U.S. officials.

After meeting in Moscow with Swiss Foreign Minister and OSCE Chair Didier Burkhalter, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a number of seemingly unexpected statements regarding Ukraine. Thus, he asked the South-East to postpone their referendum, supported president elections scheduled for May 25 and declared Russian troop withdrawal. Some of Putin's opponents say this is the evidence of his betrayal of Ukraine's South-East and his weakness in face of the sanctions. But in fact, by his declaration Putin pursued two important tasks.

First of all, he demonstrated to the world that Moscow is ready to follow the Geneva agreement on de-escalation of tension in Ukraine. This allows for reducing the risk of new sanctions against Russia: now Washington will have to work even harder convincing Europe to continue their economic pressure. In witness of this fact, the market reaction was very positive: the euro dropped below 49 rubles, the dollar - below 35, and stocks rose by 5%.

Besides, Putin induces Ukrainian coup government to react. Up to now, Kiev's strategy was plain and simple: escalation of violence, confrontation with Russia and constant complaints to Washington and Brussels. This time the Russian president complicated the matter: Kiev will have to respond to Moscow's suggestions. And if Putin's plan works out, the junta will either bury itself or deescalate the situation and consider federalization. Both variants are fine with Russia.

Followers of Harun Yahya wear drag make-up and practice a "sexed-up, Disney version of Islam" that helps promote conservative Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's vision of a modern, Muslim Turkey. Step inside this surreal world where religious piety meets psychedelic softcore porn, led by the world's foremost Islamic creationist.

Harun Yahya is said to be the messianic leader of an apocalyptic Islamic sex cult. He's also the owner of a Turkish television station called A9, and the host of his own religious talk show, which just might make your eyeballs pop out of your skull. The entire set and everyone on it glow like irradiated ultraviolet rays. Five amazing looking women usually co-host the show, wearing things like false rainbow eyelashes, wigs, and diamond-studded Versace bondage gear. The backdrop is a blinding fake lavender cityscape. Conversations often focus on how materialism and Darwinism are dead, how to recognize the face of a real Muslim, and how Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan - with whom the host is rumored to enjoy friendly relations - is "one of the important figures for the End Times".

Hillary Rodham Clinton's faith in God was shaped by her grandmother's hymns and the bedtime prayers from her gruff Navy father, the former secretary of state told thousands of Methodist women Saturday.

Clinton said she struggled as a young woman between her father's insistence on self-reliance and her mother's concern for compassion. She reconciled those in the Biblical story of Jesus instructing his disciples to feed 5,000 people with just five loaves of bread and two fish.

"The disciples come to Jesus and suggest they send away the people to find food to fend for themselves. But Jesus said, 'No. You feed them,'" Clinton said. "He was teaching a lesson about the responsibility we all share."

More than Benghazi skeletons should haunt Hillary Clinton's expected 2016 presidential bid. It now seems that the entire war in Libya - where thousands died in a civil war in which no U.S. interest was at stake - might well have been averted on her watch and, of course, that of President Obama. How? In March 2011, immediately after NATO's punishing bombing campaign began, Moammar Gadhafi was "ready to step aside," says retired Rear Adm. Charles R. Kubic, U.S. Navy. "He was willing to go into exile and was willing to end the hostilities."

What happened? According to Kubic, the Obama administration chose to continue the war without permitting a peace parley to go forward.

Kubic made these extremely incendiary charges against the Obama administration while outlining his role as the leading, if informal, facilitator of peace feelers from the Libyan military to the U.S. military. He was speaking this week at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., where the Citizens' Commission on Benghazi was presenting its interim report. Kubic maintains that to understand Benghazi, the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in which four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed, "you have to understand what happened at the beginning of the Libyan revolt, and how that civil war that created the chaos in Libya could have been prevented."

The buildup of NATO air and ground forces along the borders of Russia in eastern Europe and President Barack Obama's American power-influencing trip to Asia have a single purpose. The seen and unseen forces who dictate policy to their political puppets in Washington, London, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, and other vassal capital cities have decided to smash BRICS -- the emergent financial power bloc encompassing Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

Bilateral and multilateral discussions among the five emerging economic powers aimed at decoupling BRICS economies from the US dollar as a reserve and trading currency have met with the only power Washington can muster on behalf of itself and its foundering allies -- military force. The problems between Ukraine and Russia over Crimea and federalism within Ukraine are a mask designed to cover Obama's true intentions, which are the smashing of the BRICS as a viable alternative to the neo-colonialist financial systems of the West and subsuming the economies of the BRICS to the whims of the United States and the ever-teetering European Union.

The first cannabis-dispensing machine in Canada has begun operating in Vancouver, following on from the first machine installed recently in the US state of Colorado. The difference? The Canadian machine doesn't ID you.

Despite the controversy surrounding the plant and the endless bickering that has marked the discourse around it, the machine looks strangely ordinary and even less threatening than a cigarette pack, with big green leaves and certainly no indication that it contains something that is so hotly debated.

"We put it in the vending machine to cut down on theft and handling," says Chuck Varabioff, of the BC Pain Society, the dispensary where the machine was installed. "It's packaged up and sealed professionally. So you come in, you buy your product, it's fresh, it's quick and easy, and you're out of here in minutes."

The box contains a whole host of strains and flavors that are sure to trigger people's memories of films containing the plant: "Purple Kush, Bubba Kush," and a range of sativa and indica strains.

The product is sold in quantities slightly bigger than an eighth of an ounce (3.7 grams) and the machine only accepts cash.

Tatyana Zhdanok says the Ukrainian interim government will have to finally draw a clear line between political organizations and far-right extremists

European Parliament deputy from Latvia Tatyana Zhdanok has requested fellow MPs to support her demand that the European Commission (EC) includes the radical movement Right Sector in the list of terrorist organizations, Zhdanok's press office told ITAR-TASS on Wednesday.

If the request is satisfied, bank accounts of this organization and all its members will be frozen, the radicals will not be able to enter EU countries, while governments of different countries will cooperate for political isolation and detention of the militants. However, Zhdanok believes "it is the Ukrainian interim government that is to bear the main responsibility for defeating the Right Sector, as it will have to finally draw a clear line between political organizations and far-right extremists".

"This line is now vague, and a number of state posts are occupied by radicals of fascist views, their reputation besmirched with participation in violent actions against their opponents or law enforcement authorities," Zhdanok added.

"After the appalling tragedy in Odessa, where Right Sector militants burnt 43 supporters of Ukraine's federalization alive, the need to prohibit the Right Sector became evident. And an ordinary ban on its activities is inadequate here - there is a need to defeat this extremist organization, disarming its militants, arresting activists and court trial," the deputy said.