Although expressing different points of view on the roots of Ukraine crisis, Russia and the US have agreed to seek common ground to deescalate tensions and implement necessary reforms, having in mind that Ukrainians themselves should decide their future

"We have conducted intensive negotiations in the first place, on the crisis in Ukraine," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after four hours of negotiations with his US Secretary of State John Kerry . "We expressed dissenting views on its causes, but agreed to seek common ground to resolve the situation in Ukraine."

The diplomats shared with each other their suggestions on how to deescalate the situation, but both agreed that the Ukrainian people should take the leading role in deciding their own future.

"We have agreed to work with the Ukrainian government, the Ukrainian people in the broadest sense, to achieve the implementation of such priority measures as minority rights, language rights, disarmament of provocateurs, implementing constitutional reforms and having free and fair elections under international supervision," Lavrov told journalists.

"As things stand, the banks are the permanent government of the country, whichever party is in power."

- Lord Skidelsky, House of Lords, UK Parliament, 31 March 2011)

On March 20, 2014, European Union officials reached an historic agreement to create a single agency to handle failing banks. Media attention has focused on the agreement involving the single resolution mechanism (SRM), a uniform system for closing failed banks. But the real story for taxpayers and depositors is the heightened threat to their pocketbooks of a deal that now authorizes both bailouts and "bail-ins" - the confiscation of depositor funds. The deal involves multiple concessions to different countries and may be illegal under the rules of the EU Parliament; but it is being rushed through to lock taxpayer and depositor liability into place before the dire state of Eurozone banks is exposed.

The bail-in provisions were agreed to last summer. According to Bruno Waterfield, writing in the UK Telegraph in June 2013:

Under the deal, after 2018 bank shareholders will be first in line for assuming the losses of a failed bank before bondholders and certain large depositors. Insured deposits under £85,000 (€100,000) are exempt and, with specific exemptions, uninsured deposits of individuals and small companies are given preferred status in the bail-in pecking order for taking losses . . . Under the deal all unsecured bondholders must be hit for losses before a bank can be eligible to receive capital injections directly from the ESM, with no retrospective use of the fund before 2018.

NATO supreme commander in Europe, General Philip Breedlove, warned Russia against any attempt to "annex" Transnistria.

The Foreign Affairs Minister of the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic, the very glamorous Nina Shtanski, welcomed the outcome of Crimea's referendum on self-determination and recalled that on 17 September 2006, in an analogous vote, 97.2% of Transnistrians had come out in favor of becoming part of the Russian Federation.

The President of Transnistria's Parliament, Mikhail Burla, wrote to his Russian counterpart asking him to pass a law on the accession of Transnistria to the Russian Federation emulating, what has been done for Crimea.

Crimea is not a foreign territory to Russia, which has suddenly decided to join her. It is an essential element of its history, without which Russia today could not exist. The Oriental Review sheds light on the physical bond that unites them.

On March 18, 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a historic speech about the reunification of Crimea and Russia. A referendum held in Crimea two days before in full compliance with standard democratic procedures and the rules of international law, shocked many by it's results: there was an 82% turnout rate, with almost 97% of those casting their ballots in favor of reunification with Russia. These numbers were so astonishing that there still seem to be many people in the West who cannot bring themselves to believe how much the Crimeans truly longed to return home. And indeed, without an awareness of this land's heroic history that has been so liberally washed in Russian blood, this public enthusiasm might seem irrational, or even artificial.

In the mazelike streets of Uskudar, the Istanbul district, where Recep Tayyip Erdogan voted in nationwide elections on Sunday, his fellow citizens left the polls proclaiming their support for the Turkish prime minister louder than ever.

But less than 10 minutes away by ferry, in the more secular neighbourhood of Besiktas, many voters passionately denounced Mr Erdogan.

The US and Russia have agreed to work with the Kiev government to seek a settlement to the Ukraine crisis. John Kerry, US secretary of state, said after meeting the Russian foreign minister on Sunday that no decisions on Ukraine would be taken without the Ukrainians.

After four hours of talks in Paris, Mr Kerry said: "We will not accept any path forward where the legitimate government is not at the table."

All is not quiet on the Western Front, but the drumbeat of war along the long Ukraine-Russian border is nowhere near as loud as it sounds in Moscow.

According to dire warnings from U.S. military and intelligence officials, Russian President Vladimir Putin, fresh from his daring annexation of Ukraine's strategic Crimean Peninsula, has concentrated tens of thousands of his forces on the border with Ukraine. Camouflaged and concealed to throw off U.S. spy satellites, the warnings say, the heavily armed combat troops and special operations forces are coiled and ready to spring across the border into restive regions of Eastern and Southern Ukraine such as Kharkov and Donetsk, where pro-Russian populations are eager to be annexed by Russia, just like Crimea.

Top Russian officials - including Putin himself - have denied any such troop concentrations near the Western border. One minor Ministry of Defense official, who didn't want to be named because he wasn't authorized to comment, told NBC News that there had been training exercises - war games - in the border region but, once ended, those troops and armour returned to their bases. "All of this international hype is completely unfounded," he told us earlier in the week.


Still, the stream of YouTube video clips and photos seemed to tell a different story: long convoys of Russian armored personnel carriers on a highway headed toward Ukraine; tanks and artillery pieces moving by rail on dozens of train cars; squads of MI-24 combat helicopters perched on a hill near Belgorod, only 20 miles from Ukraine. Are these preparations for a Chechnya-like invasion, or just more maneuvers meant to intimidate Ukrainians and the West?

We went to look for ourselves. Cameraman Dmitry Solovyov, sound engineer Alexei Gordienko and I packed our bags, devices and news-gathering gadgets into the back of our grey, nondescript bureau minivan and began a journey along the 1,200 mile border between Russia and Ukraine - many segments of which give no indication that it's an actual border between two countries.

28 paintings and 6 icons were reported missing from the recreational center 'Bear oak grove' after Right Sector members left its premises, said Ukraine's Interior Ministry adding that the damage is estimated at about US$ 1 million.

The head and owner of the recreational center 'Bear oak grove' (Medveja dubrova) in Transcarpathian region has filed a complaint with the police about the missing works of art, said the ministry.

"After the Right Sector guarded the recreational center Medveja dubrova the police are looking for 28 unique painting and six icons" said the Interior Ministry in a statement on Sunday adding that a criminal investigation has been launched.

The Right sector guarded the center from 23 to 26 March, said the head of Medveja dubrova. He added that the works of art were discovered missing after an inventory of the property and they are of high historic and artistic value.

The Right Sector movement first emerged at the end of November 2013 supporting the Euromaidan protests in Kiev and headed by Dmitry Yarosh. In March the ultra-nationalist movement decided to become a political party, nominating Yarosh for president.

Russia put Yarosh on an international wanted list and charged him with inciting terrorism after he urged Chechen terrorist leader Doku Umarov to launch attacks on Russia over the Ukrainian conflict. The far-right leader has also threatened to destroy Russian pipelines on Ukrainian territory

• Bare-Faced Messiah was first published in 1986 but the Church of Scientology has successfully kept it off the shelves for 27-years
• Written by British journalist Russell Miller about Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard
• Alleges that Hubbard lied about his education and childhood in official Scientology biographies
• Claims to refute Hubbard's assertion that he was one of the nation's first nuclear physicists and a doctor
• During his research Miller found unpalatable opinions on Chinese people written by the teenage Hubbard
• Alleges that Hubbard would observe and documents bizarre sex rituals with a prominent Caltech rocket scientist
• Outlines how Hubbard realized branding Scientology as a religion would be better for business concerns

A book Scientologists have kept off the shelves of American book stores for 27-years that alleges church founder L. Ron Hubbard was a fantasist with a predilection for bizarre sexual rituals is finally to be published.

Written by British journalist Russell Miller in 1986, "Bare-Faced Messiah" cuts a swath through the many myths the Scientologist chief built up around himself and exposes him as a charismatic charmer, who targeted celebrity devotees.

Miller alleges that Hubbard lied about his service in World War II and that instead of the millions of members the church claims to have - in fact only counts around 25,000 people as followers.

Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, has given a green light to sell the country's newest S-400 air defense guided missile system to China, which Russian media claim will give Beijing an edge in the airspace of the Taiwan Strait and over islands in the East China Sea at the center of a dispute with Japan, reports the military news website of Huanqiu.com, the Chinese-language website of China's Global Times.

Beijing has been interested in acquiring the guided missile system since 2011. Two years ago, Russia talked with several countries interested in buying the system but was forced to suspend negotiations in order to ensure its supply to the Russian military, the general manager of a Russian national defense export company told Russian newspaper Kommersant in January this year. Export sales of the system may not begin until 2016.

Talk of a potential deal with China drew concerns from Russian security officials who worried that it may not only affect the supply of the system to Russia's own military but also that China could back-engineer the technology to produce its own systems. The system's manufacturer Almaz-Antei has eased the former concerns by delivering the first batch of the system. Moscow also announced a plan in January to build three new plants for the contractor in order to build more air defense and anti-guided missile systems. An intellectual property rights agreement that China and Russia signed with regard to the arms trade has also come into effect.

Though in what volume China wishes to acquire the S-400 system is unclear, Kommersant's source said China wants enough systems to equip two to four battalions. The People's Liberation Army has already obtained an air defense guided missile system and another command system from Russian and deployed them in the defense of Beijing and Shanghai, according to the paper, which estimated that the country would be able to control the airspace over Taiwan and the disputed Diaoyutai islands (Diaoyu to China, Senkaku to Japan).