The current wave of protests in Ukraine bears the label "Made in Germany," "Made in the EU" and "Made in America." The Western media has gone to great lengths to portray the demonstrations in Kiev as a struggle for democracy and the rule of law. In fact, they are part of a conflict over geostrategic issues. The aim is to repel Russian influence and subject Ukraine to the domination of Germany, the European Union and NATO.

Nine years ago, the Orange Revolution was organized with massive political and financial support from the US government and American NGOs such as the Open Society Institute of billionaire George Soros. These forces were able to annul the presidential election and ensure that the pro-EU and pro-US tandem of Viktor Yushchenko and Julia Tymoshenko took over as head of state and head of government in place of Viktor Yanukovich, who was considered to be in the pocket of Russia. The duo quickly fell out, however, and Yanukovich was able to assume the post of president in 2010.

Now another attempt is being made to bring a regime to power that will subordinate the former Soviet Republic and granary of the Russian Empire to the EU. An examination of the political leadership of the protests reveals their reactionary character. They are led by three parties, two of which have close relations with the conservative camp in the EU, while the third is openly fascist.

The full scale of the terrorist threat to Britain can be revealed today with the disclosure that about 250 British-based jihadis who went to train and fight in Syria have returned home.

Senior security officials say the high number of "returnees" - five times the figure that has been previously reported - underlines the growing danger posed by "extremist tourists" going to the war-torn region.

MI5 and police have already thwarted one serious plot last autumn by a cell of "returnee" jihadis who were allegedly preparing a Mumbai-style gun attack on civilians, probably in a crowded public place in London.

The security services are closely monitoring the 250 returnees, who include several veteran hardliners who have fought in Afghanistan or Pakistan. They are suspected of wanting to carry out attacks here or of inciting others to do so.

For the past two years Ireland's immigration policy has been in the hands of Alan Shatter, a Jew and an outspoken partisan of Israel. Alan Shatter, born and bred in Dublin of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, has made it Irish policy to increase Third World immigration to the Emerald Isle. As Minister of Justice, Equality, and Defence, Shatter is exerting his considerable clout to skew the Republic's Middle East policy, formerly supportive of the Palestinians and critical of Israel, toward Zionist aims.

Before Shatter, the Irish government had taken steps to reduce non-European immigration, including abolishing automatic citizenship for children born to foreigners in Ireland and drastically reducing the admission of asylum seekers. Since taking office in early 2011, after his Fine Gael party ousted the ruling Fianna Fail amid Ireland's continuing economic woes, Shatter has busied himself with increasing the numbers of Africans and Asians resident in Ireland.

Immigration to Ireland from outside Europe during 2011 was twice that of the previous year. Last year, the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service granted visas to 91 percent of the 88,000 non-Europeans who applied for them (citizens of the twenty-six other member states of the European Union can travel to Ireland without having to obtain a visa). An additional 115,000 migrants from outside Europe were given permission to remain in Ireland in 2012, with India, China, Nigeria, Turkey, and the Philippines among the top six countries of origin. To be sure, the number of permits to non-Europeans to reside in Ireland has declined over the previous two years - but only because Shatter's ministry has been granting them citizenship, at several times the rate of the preceding years.

Bank of England officials told currency traders it wasn't improper to share impending customer orders with counterparts at other firms, a practice at the heart of a widening probe into alleged market manipulation, according to a person who has seen notes turned over to regulators.

A senior trader gave his notes from a private April 2012 meeting of currency dealers and two central bank staff members to the Financial Conduct Authority about six weeks ago because of mounting media coverage of the investigation, said the person, who asked not to be named while probes are under way.

Traders representing some of the world's biggest banks told officials at the meeting that they shared information about aggregate orders before currency benchmarks were set, three people with knowledge of the discussion said. The officials said there wasn't a policy on such communications and that banks should make their own rules, according to the people. The notes could drag the U.K. central bank into another market-rigging scandal two years after it was criticized by lawmakers for failing to act on warnings that Libor was vulnerable to abuse.

If traders can show "they made Bank of England officials aware of practices in the FX market some time ago, then the bank will be at risk of being characterized as having endorsed, by its silence and inaction, the very practices which are now under investigation," said Simon Hart, a lawyer at RPC LLP in London.

The campaign to boycott the Sochi Olympic Games in the Western media appears to be thriving on almost the same imagery that was used three decades ago, at the peak of the Cold War, to project fear of the USSR ahead of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

For months leading up to the biggest sport event of the year widespread calls to boycott the 2014 Sochi Olympics saturated the Western media and social networks.

With numerous online and offline boycotts, protests and petitions around the world it led to a number of world's leaders not attending the opening ceremony of Sochi Olympic Games. Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and David Cameron chose to ignore the festivities, a move criticized by Thomas Bach, head of the International Olympic Committee.

While Britain claims to be an advocate of human rights in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and many other countries around the world, British history itself is corroborating evidence that Britain, the greatest human rights preacher, has also been the most flagrant human rights breacher.

More than 500,000 German civilians and refugees, mostly women and children, were slaughtered by Britain's saturation bombing in 1945, one of the worst massacres of all time.

Over 700,000 phosphorus bombs were dropped on 1.2 million defenseless inhabitants of German city Dresden under Britain's then Prime Minister Winston Churchill's order, which not only reduced one of the greatest centers of northern Europe to flaming ruins, but also led to one of the worst war crimes of the Second World War.

The foreign-exchange trading business was in upheaval across Wall Street as senior executives resigned and others were fired amid an expanding probe of possible currency manipulation.

Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of New York's Department of Financial Services, asked more than a dozen firms including Deutsche Bank AG (DB), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Citigroup Inc. (C) for documents on their currency-trading practices, said a person with knowledge of the matter. Deutsche Bank, the top foreign-exchange trader, fired four dealers after an internal probe, people with knowledge of the move said. Goldman Sachs lost two partners while Citigroup said its foreign-exchange chief will leave in March.

Lawsky's investigation is at least the 12th opened by authorities in Europe, the U.S. and Asia since Bloomberg News reported that traders at the world's largest banks colluded to manipulate the benchmark WM/Reuters rates. Even staff who aren't being probed are reassessing career plans as the scandal forces firms to change fundamental practices as revenue falls.

The Libor Scandal Sets Off a Wave of Probes

"Currency traders are now sitting in an unprecedented and unwelcome spotlight," said John Purcell, chief executive officer of Purcell & Co., a London-based executive-search firm. "Regulatory pressures, scandals and attendant reputational issues are making it a much more challenging environment."

At least 16 traders have been suspended or put on leave amid the global probe. Citigroup last month fired European spot trading chief Rohan Ramchandani.

Western criticism of Russia's Winter Olympics was reminiscent of Cold War ambitions to hold the Soviet Union back, President Vladimir Putin said on Monday, despite signs that the world was warming to the most expensive Games ever held.

The buildup to the Olympics in Sochi on the Black Sea coast has been overshadowed by threats of Islamist militant violence, an international outcry over a contentious "anti-gay propaganda" law and allegations of widespread corruption and profligacy.

As the third full day of competition drew to a close, that hostility had begun to melt away and the thrills and spills on snow and ice, and a hugely popular Russian gold in the team figure skating on Sunday, began to win the critics around.

Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg was appointed on Friday to be the U.N. special envoy for cities and climate change, a position that will give the billionaire businessman and philanthropist an international stage to press for action to combat global warming.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon chose Bloomberg, who made combating climate change a major focus of his 12 years as mayor and was very outspoken on how cities should be run to cope with ever increasing populations without harming the environment.

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Bloomberg will assist the U.N. chief in his consultations with mayors and other key parties 'to raise political will and mobilize action among cities as part of his longer-term strategy to advance efforts on climate change.'

The secretary-general also wants Bloomberg to bring 'concrete solutions' to the climate summit he is hosting in New York onSept. 23 to try to galvanize action to combat climate change, Haq said.

Bloomberg, 71, tweeted that he was 'honored' by the appointment.

The U.S. government issued rules on Friday for the first time allowing banks to legally provide financial services to state-licensed marijuana businesses.

The Justice Department issued a memorandum to prosecutors that closely follows guidance last August largely limiting federal enforcement priorities to eight types of crimes.

These include distribution to children, trafficking by cartels and trafficking to states where marijuana isn't legal. If pot businesses aren't violating federal law in the eight specific priorities, then banks can do business with them and "may not" be prosecuted.

The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued guidelines that Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery said was intended to signal that "it is possible to provide financial services" to state-licensed marijuana businesses and still be in compliance with federal anti-money laundering laws.

The guidance falls short of the explicit legal authorization that banking industry officials had pushed the to government provide.