The visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Sochi attend the inaugural ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics is invested with political symbolism. It is an expression of solidarity with Russia and with President Vladimir Putin in particular. In the event, Xi's meeting with Putin at Sochi on Thursday turned out to be substantive.

The Kremlin readout brings out that the meeting was marked by exceptional warmth. Putin disclosed that he will be meeting Xi on five occasions this year, which would include two visits to China. The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov highlighted that Xi took a common stand with Putin with regard to Ukraine. In Peskov's words, "The sides aired much criticism of outside interference.

Both parties have emphasized the unacceptability of any interference from the outside in what is happening and a very serious condemnation of such interference has been voiced." This amounts to Beijing supporting Moscow's concerns over the Ukraine situation. It is a big Chinese move, considering that it is not a Eurasian power and it implies Beijing's censuring of the European Union and the US whose officials have been visiting Ukraine and openly encouraging anti-government protests.

The United States is ready to provide financial support to Ukraine if the country implements the necessary political reforms, senior US diplomat Victoria Nuland said.

"We have had extensive discussions at all meetings concerning support from the international community, including the United States," Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs said at a press conference in Kiev on Friday.

"[The United States] is ready to support Ukraine if the will quickly move towards the path of protecting human rights, dignity, a de-escalation of the conflict, and political reforms."

Nuland's offer of support follows the leak of an apparently bugged phone conversation in which the senior US diplomat had choice words for the EU's mediation efforts in Ukraine.

On Thursday, a four-minute video - titled 'Maidan puppets,' referring to Independence Square in Ukraine's capital - was reported in the Kiev Post. In the clip, Nuland is allegedly heard saying "f**k the EU" while speaking with the American Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyat on how to end the crisis in Ukraine.

US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki declined to comment on the tape's contents, but did not deny its authenticity.

"I did not say it was not authentic," she said, adding that Nuland had apologized to her EU counterparts for the reported comments.

So long as the US and the EU are united in efforts to replace the government in Kiev, they will tolerate internal spats, Nebojsa Malic, foreign policy expert, told RT.

RT: The EU is one of the most powerful political bloc's in the world. Are we likely to see thestatements attributed to Nuland damaging relations with Washington?

Nebojsa Malic: Honestly, if I were the EU official, I would demand an apology but considering that they are on the same page with the US government, considering setting up a client regime in Ukraine, I'm inclined to believe that Brussels and various officials there, including commissars including Baroness Catherine Ashton, would tend to gloss over it. Again it's not necessarily what is done but who does it to whom. And so long as they are united in efforts to replace the government in Kiev with somebody more obedient, they'll tolerate internal spats. Honesty, even the US wiretapping of the EU officials hasn't done really much to damage relations despite obvious problems with it. I would hold my breath to see the Europeans cleave away from the US on this. On the other hand, it's very ironic that the US efforts are being effectively undone by the wiretapped phone conversation.

RT: Nuland apologized to her European counterparts, before the State Department tried to laugh it off. Do you think it goes a little deeper than that?

NM: She has apologized for a comment that she is not admitting she made, which is itself a conformation that the comment was indeed made. But what she hasn't apologized for is the plans to midwife a new government in Ukraine. In other words, she is apologizing for cussing out the EU but she is not apologizing for trying to overthrow the government in Kiev, calling it popular democracy. Obviously there is more to it than that. I don't think anyone in the US establishment feels sorry for what they are trying to do, I think they are very proud of it and they are going to pursue it.

RT: Where do you think the recording came from?

NM: That I honestly don't know. I'm as stumped as you are. I think it's most ironic that the US which is collecting everybody's phone conversations and has been for years had the tables turned in such a fashion, but how the phone conversation came to light I have no idea.

Where Russian premier Vladimir Putin totes a high-powered rifle, Western Australian premier Colin Barnett totes a giant barbed hook. One is to bears as the other is to sharks.

Playing up the ancient fear of monsters of the deep, Barnett responded to a series of fatal shark attacks last year by setting up drums trailing chains with baited hooks to catch, shoot and dump sharks of more than three metres length out at sea. The federal minister for the environment Greg Hunt gave Barnett a special exemption to ignore the national protected status of the great white shark.

The great white is the monster of the deep. It is found in all the earth's oceans, lives for 30 years or more, grows to six metres in length and more than two tonnes in weight, and feeds primarily on fish. It has no more trouble cruising from Australia to South Africa and back than it does returning year after year to its favoured seal colony when the seal pups are leaving the land to begin feeding in the sea - this has proven a dangerous place to be for people in wetsuits.

A leaked recording of a telephone conversation allegedly between US assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland and the US envoy to the Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt discussing who should be in Ukraine's next government has, according to The FT, threatened to fuel east-west tensions over the troubled nation's future. In apparent frustration with the EU - which has failed to join the US in threatening sanctions against Ukraine's leaders if they violently crush the protests - the voice resembling Ms Nuland at one point exclaims "Fuck the EU". As the two US diplomats decide whether "Klitsch" or "Yats" should be 'in' or 'out', listeners will be reminded (uncomfortably) that the governments of Ukraine and Russia previously alleged that the protests are being funded and orchestrated by the US.

The authenticity of the recording has not been confirmed (though comparisons to Nuland's recent media appearances provide some confidence) - the FT reported that the US embassy in Kiev declined to comment, which is a tacit admission: if the clip was a fake, the US would immediately make it clear.

Needless to say, as the FT adds, "[this clip] could also bolster a propaganda campaign by the governments of Ukraine and Russia alleging that the protests that erupted against Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovich last November are being funded and orchestrated by the US." Its release ahead of the day the Sochi Olympics start is also somewhat disturbing.

An excerpt on the US meddling...

An Internet search turns up an astounding number of pages about radiation from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant meltdown that followed an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. But it's difficult to find credible information.

One reason is that government monitoring of radiation and its effects on fish stocks appears to be limited. According to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, "No U.S. government or international agency is monitoring the spread of low levels of radiation from Fukushima along the West Coast of North America and around the Hawaiian Islands."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's most recent food testing, which includes seafood, appears to be from June 2012. Its website states, "FDA has no evidence that radionuclides from the Fukushima incident are present in the U.S. food supply at levels that would pose a public health concern. This is true for both FDA-regulated food products imported from Japan and U.S. domestic food products, including seafood caught off the coast of the United States."

The non-profit Canadian Highly Migratory Species Foundation has been monitoring Pacific troll-caught albacore tuna off the B.C. coast. Its 2013 sampling found "no residues detected at the lowest detection limits achievable." The B.C. Centre for Disease Control website assures us we have little cause for concern about radiation from Japan in our food and environment. Websites for Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency yield scant information.

Leading members of the House Armed Services Committee emerged from a classified briefing on the Edward Snowden leaks Wednesday afternoon "shocked" at the amount of information he reportedly leaked beyond the NSA surveillance programs.

Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), chairman of the Armed Service panel's Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee and also a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said the briefing on the defense consequences of Snowden's leaks was "very highly classified," and therefore details couldn't be discussed.

Thornberry did say that lawmakers "left the briefing disturbed and angered" after hearing that the leaks by the former Booz Allen Hamilton employee "went well beyond programs associated with the NSA and data collection."

In a speech during Thursday morning's National Prayer Breakfast, President Barack Obama acknowledged, "It's also clear that around the world, freedom of religion is under threat."

"No society can truly succeed unless it guarantees the rights of all its people, including religious minorities," he added later.

The Obama administration has been harshly criticized by the Catholic church and civil liberties organizations concerned that Obamacare mandates that organizations provide their employees free access to contraceptives through their health care plans, even if their religious faith calls contraception a sin.

This is part one of a transcript of my September 12, 2013 Interview with Ian-Hughes

In his forthcoming book Imperfect Design: How Our Psychology Threatens Our World, Ian Hughes brings together his experience in science, psychology and political science to demonstrate that a small proportion of people with dangerous personality disorders are responsible for most of the violence and greed that scars our world. His blog disorderedworld.com has just been shortlisted in the "Top 10 Political Blogs" in Ireland.

R.K.: This is the Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show, WNJC 1360 AM out of Washington Township and reaching metro Philadelphia and South New Jersey, sponsored by Opednews.com. My guest for this portion of the show is Ian Hughes. I am speaking to Ian, he's in Ireland. What part of Ireland are you in, Ian?

I.H.: I'm in Dublin at the moment Rob, I'm originally from the North though.

R.K.: Okay. Ian is the author of a book in process, Imperfect Design, and he has a website, disorderedworld.com. He's a government adviser in science and technology and I'm going to talk to Ian about pathological people. The personality disorders and psychopaths because that's what his book is about. So welcome to the show.

Threats to the rights of gay people in Russia are an issue that has been "invented" abroad, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview broadcast late Thursday.

"This situation has caused a commotion in other countries. I think it is an invented problem," Medvedev said in an interview with CNN, according to a transcript released by the Kremlin.

A law passed by Russia last year that forbids the promotion of non-traditional sexual relationships toward children has been widely condemned and has overshadowed the Winter Olympics, due to open in Sochi next month.