Three top figures from Iceland's failed Kaupthing Bank have been released from jail after barely serving a quarter of their sentences due to a new law. It comes as Iceland deals with a fresh scandal linking the ex-PM to both the Panama offshore revelations and the bank.

Former chairman of Kaupthing, Sigurdur Einarsson, its biggest shareholder, Olafur Olafsson, and the finance director of the Luxembourg branch, Magnus Gudmundsson, were released from the low-security Kviabryggju prison on Thursday.

The bankers have served just one year of their four-to-five year sentences. All were convicted of financial fraud ahead of the collapse of the country's biggest bank in October 2008.

The bankers were accused of concealing an investor from Qatar who bought a 5.1 percent equity stake in Kaupthing, with the money illegally provided as a loan from the bank itself.

The release was made possible due to a new law which was rushed through a parliamentary vote in March.

The law enables prisoners to spend double the amount of time under electronic surveillance in the comfort of their own homes than previously had been allowed, while being released earlier from jail.

Russian moves on the global stage are interrupting the whole discourse about American superpower presence in the world. That would not be tolerated, says Gerry Sussman, Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland University. Barack Obama has warned the world to prepare for the threat of nuclear terrorism, but his Defense Secretary Ash Carter has placed other alleged threats even higher on the list. Carter said reforms were necessary to make the US military more "agile" and able to address the five strategic challenges it faces, which he identified as 'Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and terrorism.'

RT: Why do you think Russia is once again topping the Pentagon's threat list?

Gerry Sussman: I think Russia, just as the Soviet Union in an earlier era, serves as a kind of unifying theme for putting together a very disunified foreign policy around a common target. We can see this again and again. I was looking at the 'Panama Papers' reporting on CNN and the main focus was on President Putin rather than some of the American allies; Mr. Poroshenko in Ukraine, who has been actually listed where as you know Putin is not even listed, but there is an inference made about his associates, is the word they use. So, I think it serves as a unifying force to build a kind of a new Cold War consensus, to give some semblance of direction to American foreign policy where there really isn't any.

The US has actually lost quite a bit of power over the years in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and I think it's just a way of creating an old bogeyman in the person of President [Vladimir] Putin and in Russia itself. And I think it is also because various US agencies involved in foreign policymaking - the State Department, the CIA, the military - are all in disarray with regard to working closely together and having one voice. I think it is also a reflection of this weakness of this particular (US) president who is in power. He refers to other agencies rather than showing political leadership in giving some direction to US foreign policy.

RT: Specifically, what threat does the Pentagon think Russia poses to the US?

GS: It represents a threat to America's global interests, to its hegemony around the world. This is the mindset of the elites in American foreign policy decision making: Anything that constitutes... a balance of power approach, which I think is generally what Russia is pursuing, this constitutes a threat to a hegemonic power that seeks global domination wherever and whenever it has interests and its interest are military, oil, political interest in general, the interest of the transnational community, and the defense of the Israeli state. There are multiple interests and anything that stands in the way of disrupting US hegemony in the pursuit of these interests constitutes a threat.

The Panama Papers, stripped to the bone, may reveal themselves, as I have argued, essentially as an infowar operation initiated by the NSA - which would conveniently target mostly Global South "enemies" (as in the BRICS nations) and selected, disposable, Western pawns.

In its current stage, the Panama Papers have morphed into a weaponized psyops posing as an 'activist leak', straight from the Hybrid War playbook.

The relentless, expert mainstream media exposure has been at pains to portray the massive leak as "responsible journalism", yet without addressing eyebrow-raising questions on how the leak really came about; how 2.6 terabytes of data, including 5 million emails, have been selectively edited; how it was obtained without encryption; how there was not a single leak while the whole hoard was being sorted out by 400 or so reporters for over a year; and how the information is being selectively released.

"Responsible journalism" gatekeepers are spinning that this came from a digital musketeer; a whistleblower. Not necessarily. The leak has already sparked a credibility war between WikiLeaks and the new mainstream leakers, the heavily compromised, Washington-based, US foundations-funded ICIJ.

The NSA thesis is sustained by the fact the NSA specializes in breaking into virtually any database and/or archive anywhere, stealing "secrets" and then selectively destroying/blackmailing/protecting assets and "enemies" according to US government interests. Add to it that Ramon Fonseca, founding partner of Mossack Fonseca, is stressing, "We rule out an inside job. This is not a leak. This is a hack."

US officials, always sensitive to anti-American leaks and harsh to whistleblowers, now appear unconcerned about how the Panama Papers came to light. Grilled by reporters, the State Department could not tell if the US-funded leak was actually data theft or not.

US State Department spokesperson Mark Toner on Thursday appeared to be seriously confused as to what stance to take in respect of the Panama leaks, with the investigative reporting group that released them partially funded by the American government via the USAID agency.

When AP reporter Matt Lee asked if the US government sees the documents published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) as stolen, Toner dodged the question, saying it was for the "Panamanian legal system or legal process to decide on."

Toner was then asked a seemingly simple yes-or-no question: "If someone comes across hundreds of thousands of pages of confidential documents and publishes them, and they were clearly not meant to be seen by the public, you don't think that that's theft?"

New snooping targets by the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) have been revealed by Der Spiegel - this time it's the US State Department and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's office in the crosshairs.

The list of the German foreign intelligence agency's targets published by the German magazine on Sunday also lists the UK's Ministry of Defence, NASA and the US Air Force.

German espionage programs reportedly targeted some departments of Austria and Belgium's interior ministries, as well as at least two subdivisions of the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) and Eurocopter.

OPEC, the International Monetary Fund and the UN International Drug Control Program were also among the BND's targets.

However, the report provides no details on the nature of the surveillance, its aims and objectives or the exact times it took place, saying only that it occurred in "recent years."

Saudi Arabia has set on a course of building pragmatic relations with Russia, amid the weakening US influence, according to US journalist David Gardner.

After King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud came to the throne in 2015 the main reins of power fell in the hands of his son and deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Under his control, Riyadh has adopted a more assertive line in its global and regional policy. The kingdom started a military operation against Houthi rebels in Yemen, intensified support for Syrian militants and cut diplomatic ties with Iran.

At the same time, there is another visible trend - approaching with Moscow, despite the fact that Moscow supports some of Riyadh's foes.

"Alliances of convenience are hardly new to the Middle East. The will to power of entrenched regimes often coexists with pragmatism, making strange bedfellows of sworn enemies," the article for Financial Times read.

Athens has signed a €368.5 million deal to sell the operator of Piraeus port to the Chinese shipping group COSCO, Reuters reported. This is the second major privatization for the country since last year.

Under the deal, COSCO will acquire 51 percent of the listed Piraeus Port Authority for €280.5 million and the remaining 16 percent for €88 million after five years, once it concludes mandatory investments. The company will invest €350 million over the next decade, and will pay an annual fee to the Greek state for running the port.

The Chinese state-owned company was the sole bidder for the port. COSCO already operates the container terminal in Piraeus under a 35-year concession it acquired in 2009. It is investing €230 million to build a second container terminal at the port which it plans to turn into a logistics hub for Chinese exports to Europe.

The United Nations has once again condemned Israel for its demolitions of the Palestinian structures in the West Bank, which have increased alarmingly over the last three months, according to new figures.

The average number of demolitions a month has soared by more than 200 percent to 165 since January, the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said, according to Reuters. February saw the unprecedented number of 265 demolished buildings.

Israel is issuing an increasing number of demolition orders for Palestinian buildings, arguing that their construction was illegal. At the same time it is practically impossible for a Palestinian to obtain a construction permit in the West Bank, which is occupied by the Israeli military.

Some 2,020 Palestinians filed a request for building permits in West Bank areas between 2010 and 2014, but only 33 of them were approved, according to Israeli Civil Administration data. Structures such as a fence or a tent also need official approval.

"It is a very marked and worrying increase," Catherine Cook of the OCHA said, adding that the situation in the West Bank hasn't been this critical since 2009, when the UN started monitoring the damage and began collecting data.

"The hardest hit are Bedouin and Palestinian farming communities who are at risk of forcible transfer, which is a clear violation of international law," Cook noted.

A plot of land in Russia's Far East could be yours, after a Russian lower house committee approved a bill that, if passed, will introduce the free handover of land to Russians and foreigners who want to build homes or start businesses in agriculture or tourism in the region.

The Russian lower house Committee for Real Estate and Construction recommended that the State Duma approve the bill in the second reading in a session coming up on April 12. The parliament already approved the draft in the first reading on December 18, 2015.

The current document provides for the free handover of 1 hectare (about 2.5 acres) of land to foreign citizens. However, foreigners will only be allowed to use the land, and the registration of full property rights is only possible after the naturalization of potential owners.

The original bill was drafted by the Russian government in November last year. The explanations attached to the document read that the authorities expect the free land handover to attract more people to the Far East Federal District, to slow or stop the outward migration of locals, and to boost the socio-economic development of the territory.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he is not mentioned in the so-called Panama Papers on offshore activities, so the discussion about it is pointless.

"Your humble servant is not there, so there's nothing to talk about," Putin said at a media forum.

Musician Sergei Roldugin, listed in the Panama Papers leak, did try to run a business, but not a billion-dollar business, Vladimir Putin said.

"As for Sergei Pavlovich Roldugin...he is a very creative person. Many creative people in Russia, I don't know, maybe one in two if you look into it, try to do business. As far as I know, so did Sergei Pavlovich," Putin said at a media forum.