Prince Charles has sensationally likened Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler.

In a withering verdict on the actions of the Russian president in Ukraine, he told a woman who lost relatives in the Nazi Holocaust: 'And now Putin is doing just about the same as Hitler.'

The prince's extraordinary intervention is certain to cause international controversy.

It is likely to be seen as a criticism of the West for failing to confront Mr Putin over his seizure of Crimea. The annexation was the first by a major power in Europe since 1945.

Observers have compared the crisis in Ukraine with Hitler's takeovers of Czechoslovakia and Poland.

They have pointed to the similar use of disguised special forces to stir up tensions in disputed areas.


Charles, who is scheduled to meet Mr Putin at the D-Day commemorations in France on June 6, made his well-intentioned but unguarded comment during a visit to the Canadian Museum of Immigration in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The Russian Lower House calls the detention of Russian reporters in Ukraine a crime against the freedom of speech, and urges international journalist groups and human rights organizations to denounce the Kiev authorities.

An official State Duma motion on the holding of Russia's Lifenews journalists Marat Saichenko and Oleg Sidyakin has been prepared by the majority United Russia caucus. It was supported and jointly drafted by all four parliamentary factions.

It was passed unanimously on Wednesday afternoon.

The document reads that the reporters detained in Ukraine and charged with terrorism fell victim to a provocation and should be released immediately.

China on Tuesday warned the United States was jeopardizing military ties by charging five Chinese officers with cyberspying and tried to turn the tables on Washington by calling it "the biggest attacker of China's cyberspace."

China announced it was suspending cooperation with the United States in a joint cybersecurity task force over Monday's charges that officers stole trade secrets from major American companies. The Foreign Ministry demanded Washington withdraw the indictment.

The testy exchange marked an escalation in tensions over U.S. complaints that China's military uses its cyber warfare skills to steal foreign trade secrets to help the country's vast state-owned industrial sector. A U.S. security firm, Mandiant, said last year it traced attacks on American and other companies to a military unit in Shanghai.

The charges are the biggest challenge to relations since a meeting last summer between President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in Sunnylands, California.

Ties already were under strain due to conflicts over what Washington says are provocative Chinese moves to assert claims over disputed areas of the East and South China Seas. Beijing complains the Obama administration's effort to shift foreign policy emphasis toward Asia and expand its military presence in the region is emboldening Japan and other neighbors and fueling tension.

Beijing has denied conducting commercial spying and said it is a victim of computer hacking, but has given little indication it investigates foreign complaints.

China has accused the United States of "hypocrisy" and "double standards" following its decision to charge five Chinese army officers with cybertheft against major American businesses.

The Foreign Ministry in Beijing even took the step of summoning U.S. Ambassador Max Baucus late Monday, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported, as tensions between the two countries threatened to escalate into a full-scale diplomatic incident.

Earlier Monday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the men, all members of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), "maintained unauthorized access to victim computers to steal information from these entities that would be useful" to the victims' competitors in China.

Holder said some of the "victims" included U.S. Steel Corp., Westinghouse, Alcoa, Allegheny Technologies, the United Steel Workers Union and SolarWorld.

Former General Kalifa Hafter is leading a coup against the Libyan government.

After Islamist terrorists did NATO's dirty work, they are fighting over the spoils. Enter CIA-asset General Kalifer Hafter.

General Haftar has been in the pocket of the US via the CIA since his traitorous defection during the Libyan/Chadian conflict in the 70's and 80's. He defected and actually moved to the US and lived in and near Langley Virginia for years. It is a well known fact that he was working with the CIA.

So the ultimate politico-economic-media earthquake of the young 21st century remains the (poisonous) gift that keeps on giving. What a raw nerve Abel Ferrara, of King of New York and Bad Lieutenant fame, has now been able to strike.

An "outraged" Dominique Strauss-Kahn, aka DSK, is going to sue the producers of Welcome to New York, the movie inspired by the epic 2011 scandal that effectively terminated his career as head of the International Monetary Fund and possible future president of France.

The beauty of it is that Ferrara's soft porn spectacular is no more than a "fictionalized version"; "Devereaux" (Gerard Depardieu) stands for fallen Master of the Universe DSK and "Simone" (Jacqueline Bisset) for his multi-millionairess wife Anne Sinclair. Still, DSK's lawyerly bunch has been adamant in reminding Ferrara that their client was duly cleared by the US justice system of the charge of sexual aggression on a Guinean employee of the Sofitel New York in 2011.

DSK's former wife Sinclair, for her part, is publicly "vomiting" her "disgust" for Ferrara's alleged "anti-Semitism" (too much of a stretch) and misogyny (more plausible). Yet she won't sue. As even the Mars rover knows, the whole judicial bordello was confidentially settled by the end of 2012.

Gotta love the current hysteria-cum-PR blitz though - which somewhat mirrored the real thing back in 2011. (See Sex, power and American justice, Asia Times Online, May 19, 2011.) Welcome to New York had its mega-hyped world premiere on the margins of the Cannes Film Festival this past Saturday - under a tent on Nikki Beach, in front of the legendary Carlton, followed by a Depardieu press conference where he even quoted Shakespeare.

The shenanigans also featured a good, old-fashioned newspaper war. Le Monde got the scoop, watching the movie ahead of anyone else (and they loved it). Liberation hated it. And Le Figaro, not to be outdone, denounced "nauseous anti-Semitism"; Simone shows her Anne Sinclair avatar is shown to be an obsessive power woman, actively helping the state of Israel "with devotion and love" and coming from a family that made a dodgy fortune during World War II (one of Deveraux/Depardieu's best lines is "1945 was a good year").

Real life, meanwhile, is now sweet again for the former power couple. Sinclair is back in the limelight editing the French branch of the Huffington Post. And DSK showed up a few days ago on France 2 network pontificating about politics and economics.

The 4th Summit of Heads of State of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (Cica) opened on May 21 in Shanghai. This organization, which was created after the demise of the Soviet Union, aims to stabilize Asia on the pattern of the OSCE in Europe. However, this forum never really functioned due to both the lack of regional leadership throughout the 1990s and 2000s, and the absence of a culture of dialogue between Member States. The organization remained dormant during the Turkish chairmanship which has been taken over by China.

All changes are now possible around Russia and China. After the accession of Qatar and Bangladesh, the number of CICA member states has been brought to 26. Yesterday, the Russian and Chinese presidents have decided to consolidate the payment of their bilateral trade in local currencies rather than in dollars. And it appears certain that the summit will issue a joint statement with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Coups follow one after another in Libya. After the Islamists and the Misrata clan at the General National Congress imposed, on 4 May 2014, Ahmed Maiteeq as the new Prime Minister, the other (resigning) Prime Minister, Abdullah al-Thinni, announced he was suspending the interim parliament until the general elections.

For his part, General Khalifa Haftar and Zintan clan, after their failed military takeover of parliament, declared war on the Ansar Al-Sharia Islamist militia.

General Haftar has been identified as a CIA operative since the Libya war with Chad. The Zintan Clan Zintan is holding Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi prisoner.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon stands ready to intervene. Four V-22 Osprey aircraft and 200 Marines arrived at the naval base in Sigonella (Italy), in addition to the other four V-22s Ospreys stationed in Moron (Spain), as part of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response team.

Last week we commented that based on TIC data, while "Belgium's" unprecedented Treasury buying spree continues, one country has been dumping US bonds at an unprecedented rate, and in March alone Russia sold a record $26 billion, or 20% of its holdings.
So as Russia is selling record amount of US paper, what is it buying? For the answer we go to Goldcore which tells us that...

Russia Buys 900,000 Ounces Of Gold Worth $1.17 Billion In April

The Russian central bank has again increased its gold reserves by another 900,000 ounces worth $1.17 billion in April.

Russia's gold reserves rose to 34.4 million troy ounces in April, from 33.5 million troy ounces in March, the Russian central bank announced on its website yesterday. The value of its gold holdings rose to $44.30 billion as of May 1, compared with $43.36 billion a month earlier, it added.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for the creation of a new Asian organization for security cooperation with the participation of Iran and Russia.

Xi voiced his call while addressing the fourth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Shanghai, China.

"We need to innovate our security cooperation (and) establish new regional security cooperation architecture," Xi told the summit, which was also attended by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Chinese president said CICA should also create a security response center to deal with emergencies.

Xi said Asian nations should respond collectively to such significant problems as transnational crime, cyber security, energy security, terrorism and natural disasters.