As the fires die down from the turmoil in Kiev, a political party that has been accused of promoting anti-Semitism and xenophobia is set to reap the benefits of the new government arrangement.

The Svoboda Party will take control of not one, but three ministries in the interim government.

These posts include the deputy prime minister and the heads of the agriculture and environmental ministries. In addition to these positions, a Svoboda lawmaker was appointed the new prosecutor general in the interim government.

Svoboda's leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, is one of the leading opposition figures during the recent crisis in Ukraine and met with Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain when the former presidential candidate visited the tumultuous country last December.

Tyahnybok and other party leaders have been accused of making numerous anti-Semitic and racist remarks. In 2004, Tyahnybok urged his party in a televised speech to fight "the Moscow-Jewish mafia ruling Ukraine."

This week we'll be, once again, discussing the situation in Ukraine but this time in the context of international politics and if the pathocrats really are insane enough to push the world to the brink of all-out war.

Ukraine's population is split, roughly 50/50, between those who are "pro EU/US" and those who are "pro Russia". The recent "revolution" and change of government in Ukraine has exacerbated political, ethnic and religious divisions (as all US-inspired provocations do, and are designed to do) among the Ukrainian people. At present, the US-backed government in Kiev and its supporters in Western Ukraine are lobbying the UN security council and NATO (the US military mainly) to "look at all ways to protect its territorial integrity." At the same time, the newly declared 'independent' parliament in the Crimean peninsula has called on Russia to protect its 'integrity'. All of which appears to shape up as the opening gambit in a possible soon to come military confrontation between the USA and Russia. So, is the real war that never came during the 'cold war' about to kick off?

We'll be giving our perspective on this interesting question. We'll also be looking at recent worldwide weather and 'environmental' anomalies and bringing you a new theory of cloud formation and its link to "global warming" and a never before heard explanation of what is causing those pesky sinkholes that have been swallowing cars and people for the past several years. We'll also be explaining why, given that there has been a stark reduction in solar activity in recent years, there have been more severe storms on the planet, when, according to official science, less solar activity should mean a quieter planet, weather-wise.

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A Republican state lawmaker who has been criticized by the Maine Democratic Party for his past statements about homosexuality, rape and abortion, said Wednesday that he regrets the comments, the Morning Sentinel reported.

Democrats called for state Rep. Lawrence Lockman's resignation after blogger Mike Tipping chronicled Lockman's public statements since the 1980s in a blog post Tuesday.

Among other declarations and protestations concerning the IRS, HIV/AIDS and homosexuality, Lockman, then president of the Pro-Life Education Association, said in a letter sent in 1990 that he didn't see why rape shouldn't be acceptable if abortion is legal.

"If a woman has [the right to an abortion], why shouldn't a man be free to use his superior strength to force himself on a woman?" Lockman wrote. "At least the rapist's pursuit of sexual freedom doesn't [in most cases] result in anyone's death."

President Barack Obama asked Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday afternoon to return his troops to their barracks and to remove his forces from Ukraine.

However, Obama didn't threaten or promise significant retaliation if Putin continued his advance into the majority-Russian parts of the Ukraine, according to a White House statement about their 90-minute phone call.

"If Russia has concerns about the treatment of ethnic Russian and minority populations in Ukraine, the appropriate way to address them is peacefully through direct engagement with the government of Ukraine and through the dispatch of international observers under the auspices of the United Nations," Obama told Putin, according to the White House statement.

A continued advanced by Russia's T-90 tanks, Mi-24 attack helicopters, BTR-90 troop carriers and paratroop battalions would "negatively impact Russia's standing in the international community," the statement threatened.

Karl Marx said of religion:

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

When Karl Marx wrote this, organized religion was very much the solace of so many people -people who might have otherwise sought more effective means of alleviating their daily suffering had this opiate not been available.

Overtime, that solace was slowly eroded and replaced by an entire medicine cabinet full of "opiates." From sports to TV, to video games and social media, there is a vast multitude of illusions we cling to today that provide a "soul to soulless conditions."

Among them, it can easily be argued, is modern Western-style "democracy" which is perhaps one of the most insidious.

Perpetually offering the promise of a better tomorrow, never actually delivered but always just one elections away from being realized - it is the strongest of all the opiates we sedate our anger, dissatisfaction, and will to effect change ourselves with.

The ultra-right Svoboda Party has scored six major cabinet ministries in the government of Arseniy Yatsenyuk approved by the Ukrainian parliament on Thursday. Svoboda is the Neo-Nazi, ultra-right, anti-Semitic, Russophobic party with its base of support in the Western Ukraine.

The most important post was claimed by a co-founder of Svoboda, Andriy Parubiy. He was named Secretary of the Security and National Defense Committee, which supervises the defense ministry and the armed forces.

The Parubiy appointment to such an important post should, alone, be cause for international outrage. He led the masked Right Sector thugs who battled riot police in the Independence Maidan in Kiev.

The Right Sector is an openly fascist, anti-Semitic and anti-Russian organization. Most of the snipers and bomb throwers in the crowds were connected with this group.

Right Sector members have been participating in military training camps for the last two years or more in preparation for street activity of the kind witnessed in the Ukraine over the last few months.

Meanwhile, people in Kharkov are organising self-defence teams to patrol the city. Each group is made up of 30-50 people

Radicals are on their way to the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov where far-right group Right Sector activists have been forced out of the building of the regional administration, City Mayor Gennady Kernes said on Saturday, March 1.

"We have information indicating that buses with extremists are on their way here," the mayor said at a thousand-strong rally in Freedom Square.

He urged "law enforcement agencies to do your best to keep Bendera followers away from our city."

Kernes' words that "there are Berkut [anti-riot police] men among us" were welcomed by an ovation. However he admitted that the police were demoralised and tens of thousands of them were tendering resignation letters. He could not say whether law enforcement could protect citizens.

Meanwhile, people in Kharkov are organising self-defence teams to patrol the city. Each group is made up of 30-50 people.

Kharkov region Governor Vasily Khoma also urged police to "stop any attempt to enter the city on the approaches to Kharkov."

While NATO leaders are jubilant over the Kiev coup, which they present to public opinion as a revolution, the situation is reversed in the field. Instead of government of thugs raising the stakes between Washington and Moscow, it is now up to U.S. agents to exercise power and manage the problems they have organized. Moreover the country is ruined and nobody whomsoever will succeed in bringing about a quick recovery. Russia can now defend its interests without incurring the liabilities from twenty years of earlier corruption.

Russia did not responde to the Ukrainian events during the Olympic Games in Sochi. [1] Its press continued to make headlines of the exploits of its athletes while there was fighting in Kiev and in several provincial capitals. The Kremlin considered in effect that at any time, the enemies of Russia could still turn its sports festival into a bloodbath.

As expected, power had changed hands in Kiev at the closing of the Games. Westerners, largely misinformed, had the impression of a pro-European revolution. However, disclosure of a telephone conversation between the assistant U.S. Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, and her ambassador, Geoffrey R. Pyatt, left no doubt about the US plot. [2] Using false images, a government of thugs and crooks [3] was transformed into a band of Russophile torturers. [4] As in all the "color revolutions", mysterious snipers on the rooftops fired upon both the crowd and the police, and the government was held responsable. In the confusion, the West had the impression that "the people" had seized the national palace. In reality, while mostly Nazi activists fought in Maidan Place live on international television, politicians discreetly seized the national palace in another part of the city. From this point of view, Europeans can rest assured that it is not the Nazis who took power.

The City Council in the eastern city of Donetsk has refused to recognize Ukraine's self-imposed government and called for a referendum on the region's status. The council has made Russian alongside Ukrainian the official language in the region.

"Until all the legitimacy of the new laws approved by Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian Parliament] is clarified, the City Council [of Donetsk] will take full responsibility for its territories," said the document approved by Donetsk City Council during the special session of March, 1. The report comes from Ukraine-based Zerkalo Nedeli newspaper.

Donetsk is the capital of the coal-rich Donbass region in eastern Ukraine. Beside Donetsk, a major economic, industrial and scientific center, Donbass includes Lughansk and Dnepropetrovsk regions.

The Council called for a referendum on Donbass's future, urging the local parliament to set the date immediately. The move is set to "protect the citizens from possible violent actions on the behalf of radicalized nationalistic forces," the council said in a statement.

In addition, the members of the city council have voted to set up self-defense squads.

Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper chaired on Saturday a special meeting of the government on the situation in Ukraine, and later on made a statement.

The statement reads Russia's actions "are a clear violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity." Canada has suspended its preparations to attend June's G8 Summit in Sochi.