The Both Houses of the US Congress have passed a bill providing assistance to Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia. It envisages 50 million dollars in financial aid to Ukraine for improving democratic governance, anti-corruption efforts and supporting free and fair elections in Ukraine and allots additional $100 million to enhance security cooperation among the US, EU and countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

The document also calls for the introduction of sanctions against Russian citizens, who, according to US senators, are associated with the violation of human rights in Ukraine or actions that undermine the territorial integrity of Ukraine. The Voice of Russia talked to Francis Boyle, professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and author of Tackling America's Toughest Questions.

Can this financial aid stabilize the financial situation in Ukraine?

Of course not. It is purely symbolic, it is pretty much money down the drain. I think everyone knows it. Ukraine has enormous financial problems, as you know. President Putin offered Yanukovich 15 billion dollars and a 5 billion dollar gas discount, which would have helped meet their immediate upcoming debts. But this is purely symbolic.

President Putin has highlighted the success of Russia's internal security service in counter-intelligence. Speaking at the FSB executive council he said that fighting extremism is the agency's top priority.

"The situation remains complicated, the terrorist underground, despite suffering serious casualties retains the capability of launching terrorist attacks against the civilian population," the Interfax news agency quoted Putin as saying on Monday.

"Extremist radical groups are trying to boost their activities not only in the North Caucasus but also to transfer them into different regions of our country, to the Volga Region and Central Russia, they seek to instigate ethnic and religious conflicts," the president said.

"My assessment is that 90% of the value of the US dollar comes from the US military."

- Former Assistant Housing Secretary Catherine Austin Fitts

For decades, America has used its armed strength to enforce the use of the dollar as the world's reserve currency, effectively making the US military the armed wing of the international banking cartel (IBC). Since 1971 when President Richard Nixon stopped paying US debt obligations with gold, America has increasingly used its military might to prop up the value of the dollar and enforce a global financial structure whose primary beneficiary is the US itself, and whose central bank, the Federal Reserve, serves as the IBC's supervisory authority.

Who or what is this IBC? It consists of Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo along with Deutsche Bank, BNP and Barclays. Eight families reportedly control the IBC: the Goldman Sachs, Rockefellers, Lehmans, Kuhn Loebs, Rothschilds, Warburgs, Lazards and the Israel Moses Seifs. Besides owning the US oil behemoths Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Chevron Texaco, IBC member institutions are among the top ten shareholders of nearly every Fortune 500 company. While the IBC itself has no formal status, nevertheless its members are represented by an international body, the Financial Stability Board (FSB). Organized as the Financial Security Forum in 1999 by G7 finance ministers and central bank governors, the FSB "seeks to give momentum to a broad-based multilateral agenda for strengthening financial systems and the stability of international financial markets."

At least 1,000 protesters have gathered in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, the industrial capital of the region, demanding that authorities respect their right for self-determination by allowing them to stage a Crimea-style referendum.

The rally was held in the city's central Lenin Square. Demonstrators held Russian flags and signs which read, "The Republic of Donetsk."

The protesters called for a general all-Ukrainian strike and distributed leaflets declaring April 18 a referendum day.

"Today a referendum remains a sharp political and social issue in Donbass region. People do not leave squares and require to hold [a referendum]. The fight for a referendum is accompanied by protests against rising prices for gas, electricity and food. The socio-patriotic movement 'Eastern Front' offers trade unions to hold a general strike on April 18. The goal of the strike is to require that the authorities hold a referendum and introduce a moratorium on the increase of tariffs and utilities," said the leaflet, according to local media reports.

Residents then marched from the square to the city council building. Law enforcement officers in riot gear gathered near the building.

Momentum is building behind what would be an unprecedented effort to amend the U.S. Constitution, through a little-known provision that gives states rather than Congress the power to initiate changes.

At issue is what's known as a "constitutional convention," a scenario tucked into Article V of the U.S. Constitution. At its core, Article V provides two ways for amendments to be proposed. The first - which has been used for all 27 amendment to date - requires two-thirds of both the House and Senate to approve a resolution, before sending it to the states for ratification. The Founding Fathers, though, devised an alternative way which says if two-thirds of state legislatures demand a meeting, Congress "shall call a convention for proposing amendments."

The idea has gained popularity among constitutional scholars in recent years -- but got a big boost last week when Michigan lawmakers endorsed it.

Michigan matters, because by some counts it was the 34th state to do so. That makes two-thirds.

Roberto Lovato interviews intellectual heavyweight Luis García Britto about the role of the media in the current conflict in Venezuela.

The novelist, essayist, historian and playwright Luis Britto García is a titan of Latin American literature and thought, though he's not nearly as well known on this side of the cultural border between "America" the country and América the continent. Many consider this prize-winning author the most important writer and intellectual in Venezuela. In addition to his novels and many other books on language, culture and politics, Britto García has written extensively on the role of the media in Venezuelan politics. Last month, Nation contributor Roberto Lovato met with Britto García, 73, in his home in Caracas to talk about the role of the media in the current conflict.

Roberto Lovato: You've written a lot about the media and politics in Venezuela. How are the media behaving in the current conflict?

Luis Britto García: The current situation in Venezuela has a historical context that must be understood. During the previous coup attempt, in 2002, the television networks in particular played a determining role in what amounted to a media coup. The media themselves became political actors, something I've documented in my book Media Dictatorship [2012]. Just consider, for example, how the Carmona decree - in which the coup leaders essentially gutted the Constitution - was signed by representatives of the major media. This same media also edited out images, stories and facts that didn't fit their narrative. During the coup, the television crews even showed up before the repressive acts were performed by the coup leaders.

And how are things similar or different today?

In this current coup attempt, the television networks have adopted a different tone, but the radio and social media and international press are playing a leading role, using images of repression in Egypt, Syria, the United States and other countries to depict supposed repression in Venezuela. Look, for example, how a few hundred violent students come to symbolize "students," "youth" and "the country."

"They [the Colombian and Venezuelan oligarchies and North American imperialism] know very well what they want to bring about, a chaos of blood and death. For what? It is very simple. Through the chaos of blood and death, they want to welcome the old imperialism here, according to their plans, to dominate Venezuela, to pacify Venezuela, and what is most important for imperialism, to secure one of the largest oil reserves on the planet that is here, as we know, on our territory."

--Hugo Chavez, 16 May, 2004.ⁱ

Over the past six weeks the so called salida ya [exit now] strategy launched by the Venezuelan opposition has developed, in part, into a low intensity war against the democratically elected government of President Nicolas Maduro. This essay will examine two strategic objectives of the Bolivarian revolution that serve as pillars of resistance to the anti-democratic elements of the counter revolution: the struggle to preserve national independence and the campaign to develop and expand the communal structures that are the organized expressions of popular power.

Greg Palast on the secret 'Geithner-Summers End-Game Memo' - with Max Keiser.

Originally aired on 17 September 2013

"To force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury." - Benjamin Tucker, 19th century advocate of American individualist anarchism

The State Department wants $400,000 to purchase a fiberglass sculpture of a camel looking at a needle for its new embassy in Pakistan. They've already spent their allotted $630,000 to increase the number of "likes" and fans on their Facebook and Twitter pages. The NATO ambassador for the U.S. needs $700,000 for landscaping and gardening, the National Science Foundation would like $700,000 to put on a theatrical production about climate change, and the Senate staffers need $1.9 million for lifestyle coaching. Also, Yale University researchers could really use $384,000 so they can study the odd cork-screw shape of a duck's penis.

I promise this is no belated April Fools' joke. These are actual line items paid for by American taxpayers, whose tax dollars continue to be wasted on extravagant, unnecessary items that serve no greater purpose than to fatten the wallets of corporations and feed political graft (such as the $1 million bus stop, complete with heated benches and sidewalks which can only shelter 15 people and provides little protection from rain, snow, or the sun).

Case in point: despite the fact that we have 46 million Americans living at or below the poverty line, 16 million children living in households without adequate access to food, and at least 900,000 veterans relying on food stamps, enormous sums continue to be doled out for presidential vacations ($16 million for trips to Africa and Hawaii), overtime fraud at the Department of Homeland Security (nearly $9 million in improper overtime claims, and that's just in six of the DHS' many offices), and Hollywood movie productions ($10 million was spent by the Army National Guard on Superman movie tie-ins aimed at increasing awareness about the National Guard).

This doesn't even touch on the astronomical amounts of money spent on dubious wars abroad.

Consider that since 2001, Americans have spent $10.5 million every hour for numerous foreign military occupations, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. There's also the $2.2 million spent every hour on maintaining the United States' nuclear stockpile, and the $35,000 spent every hour to produce and maintain our collection of Tomahawk missiles. And then there's the money the government exports to other countries to support their arsenals, at the cost of $1.61 million every hour for the American taxpayers.

Czech leader Milos Zeman has said that the EU should accept the fact that Crimea is now part of Russia, stressing that the former autonomous region won't return to Ukraine in any foreseeable future.

Zeman described Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's decision to give Crimea to the Ukraine in 1954 as "stupid" in a radio interview.

He also blasted the law of the Ukraine's state language which deprives the Russian-speaking population of the right to use its language at the state level. He called this situation "idiotic."

However, the Czech leader suggested NATO should send its troops if Russia attempts to "annex the eastern part of the country," as cited by Reuters.