Since the kidnapping of nearly 300 girls, Hillary Clinton has risen to the fore of those demanding international action and calling Nigerian group Boko Haram terrorists.

But during her tenure at the head of the U.S. Department of State, Clinton resisted numerous calls from the CIA, the FBI, the Department of Justice and a number of U.S. senators and congressmen to do just that.

On Sunday, Clinton tweeted:

Access to education is a basic right & an unconscionable reason to target innocent girls. We must stand up to terrorism. #BringBackOurGirls

The UK's MI5 has decided to beef up its team with more experts on Russia amid the ongoing political crisis in Ukraine. It is now hiring Russian intelligence analysts to monitor intercepted phone calls and emails.

According to the Times' David Leppard, the British Secret Service is advertising the positions in this week's newspapers. It can also be easily found on MI5's official website.

Successful applicants will be tasked with listening to telephone calls in Russian, working with written documents "intercepted under warrant" and providing expert support to investigative officers.

The fluent Russian speakers will be giving "clear analysis in a variety of ways" that, MI5 says, will "help safeguard national security."

An Egyptian preacher has issued a fatwa - an Islamic legal opinion - according to which rape is like robbery and a husband should not risk his life protecting his wife's honor from another man.

Yasser Burhami, the vice president of Salafist Call, the religious arm of the political ultra-conservative Nour party, has compared a rape with a robbery, saying that nobody should put their live in danger for money.

"In this case he [husband] is forced [to surrender her] and not obliged [to defend her],"Al Arabiya quoted the cleric as saying in his fatwa.

Burhami's remarks, published on Anasalafy.com have been widely condemned by other clerics and activists in Egypt.

Pedophiles seeking to download sexual abuse "how to" manuals will be treated like extremists obtaining bombing-making guides online, British Prime Minister David Cameron said, announcing that the measure would be in his Queen's Speech law program.

Cameron said he wanted to close a loophole that allows sexual predators to legally produce and possess "manuals" advising them how to identify and groom potential victims, as well as to evade police detection.

"It's completely unacceptable that there is a loophole in the law which allows pedophiles to write and distribute these disgusting documents. I want to ensure we do everything we can to protect children - and that's why I am making them illegal," Cameron told the Sunday Times, referring to his legislative program, which according to tradition will be read out by Queen Elizabeth II during the State Opening of Parliament on June 4.

A US federal judge in New York has ordered Microsoft to turn over their customers' emails and other digital content to law enforcement agencies, even in case the data is being stored on servers physically overseas.

New York Magistrate Judge James Francis does not question the cosmopolitan power of a valid search warrant issued by a US law enforcement agency. In a first-of-a-kind court ruling Friday, the judge created a precedent that no US internet provider, be it Microsoft or Google or another company, can refuse an official demand to share foreign clients' private data, Reuters reported.

The initial search warrant was issued last December in regards of one of Microsoft's clients who stored his data on a server run in Dublin, Ireland. An undisclosed US agency sought information that could be found in the person's email, such as the customer's name, credit card numbers or bank account used for payment.

There is no need to sequester funds urgently needed by Main Street to pay for Wall Street's malfeasance. Californians can have their cake and eat it too -- with a state-owned bank.

Governor Jerry Brown is aggressively pushing a California state constitutional amendment requiring budget surpluses to be used to pay down municipal debt and create an emergency "rainy day" fund, in anticipation of the next economic crisis.

On the face of it, it is a sensible idea. As long as Wall Street controls America's finances and our economy, another catastrophic bust is a good bet.

But a rainy day fund takes money off the table, setting aside funds we need now to reverse the damage done by Wall Street's last collapse. The brutal cuts of 2008 and 2009 shrank the middle class and gave California the highest poverty rate in the country.

The costs of Wall Street gambling are being thrust on its primary victims. We are given the choice of restoring much-needed services or maintaining austerity conditions in order to pay Wall Street the next time it brings down the economy.

Ukraine's acting President Aleksandr Turchinov has announced he is reinstating a military draft to help deal with the "deteriorating" situation in the country's east and south.

The draft will call on all males between 18 and 25 years of age, who are not eligible for an exemption.

Turchinov's office said in a statement on Thursday that the decision was made "given the deteriorating situation in the east and the south...the rising force of armed pro-Russian units and the taking of public administration buildings...which threaten territorial integrity."

The military draft will be carried out in May-July, but no details were given as to where the new conscripts will be deployed.

Last year, Ukraine announced plans to stop the draft in 2014 and begin the transfer to a professional army. However, Turchinov said he decided to change the existing law due to "threats of encroachment on Ukraine's territorial integrity."

On Wednesday, Turchinov said the government in Kiev cannot control the situation in the east of the country and that Ukraine's army is on full alert due to the "threat of a Russian invasion."

"I am going back to the real threat that Russia would unleash a continental war against Ukraine. Our armed forces have been put on full alert," Turchinov told a council of Ukrainian regional heads in Kiev on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, May Day celebrations in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine turned violent as pro-autonomy activists seized the local prosecutor's office. Police responded with tear gas and stun grenades but later relinquished their weapons.

The storming of the Donetsk Region Prosecutor's Office began when several dozen shield-holding protesters pelted rocks and petrol bombs at the building while chanting, "Fascists!" as they tried to break in.

Twenty-six people sustained injuries, including gunshot wounds, as a result of the storm and clashes, RIA Novosti reported, citing Donetsk officials. Two of them were hospitalized. The Interior Ministry said that one National Guard soldier was wounded.

Exclusive: The horrendous fire in Odessa, killing dozens of ethnic Russians protesting against the U.S.-backed coup regime in Kiev, has lurched the country closer to full-scale civil war and disrupted the American media's efforts to deny the existence of pro-regime neo-Nazis, Robert Parry reports.

As much as the coup regime in Ukraine and its supporters want to project an image of Western moderation, there is a "Dr. Strangelove" element that can't stop the Nazism from popping up from time to time, like when the Peter Sellers character in the classic movie can't keep his right arm from making a "Heil Hitler" salute.

This brutal Nazism surfaced again on Friday when right-wing toughs in Odessa attacked an encampment of ethnic Russian protesters driving them into a trade union building which was then set on fire with Molotov cocktails. As the building was engulfed in flames, some people who tried to flee were chased and beaten, while those trapped inside heard the Ukrainian nationalists liken them to black-and-red-striped potato beetles called Colorados, because those colors are used in pro-Russian ribbons.

"Burn, Colorado, burn" went the chant.

Whatever happened to honor among thieves? When the National Security Agency was caught eavesdropping on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone, it was considered a rude way to treat a friend. Now U.S. intelligence officials are saying - albeit very quietly, behind closed doors on Capitol Hill - that our Israeli "friends" have gone too far with their spying operations here.

According to classified briefings on legislation that would lower visa restrictions on Israeli citizens, Jerusalem's efforts to steal U.S. secrets under the cover of trade missions and joint defense technology contracts have "crossed red lines."

Israel's espionage activities in America are unrivaled and unseemly, counterspies have told members of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees, going far beyond activities by other close allies, such as Germany, France, the U.K. and Japan. A congressional staffer familiar with a briefing last January called the testimony "very sobering...alarming...even terrifying." Another staffer called it "damaging."

The Jewish state's primary target: America's industrial and technical secrets.

"No other country close to the United States continues to cross the line on espionage like the Israelis do," said a former congressional staffer who attended another classified briefing in late 2013, one of several in recent months given by officials from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the State Department, the FBI and the National Counterintelligence Directorate.

The intelligence agencies didn't go into specifics, the former aide said, but cited "industrial espionage - folks coming over here on trade missions or with Israeli companies working in collaboration with American companies, [or] intelligence operatives being run directly by the government, which I assume meant out of the [Israeli] Embassy."

UPDATE (3:55 PM EST): White House responds to Putin remarks with skepticism, new sanctions

Following remarks by Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier in the day indicating he had ordered his troops away from the Ukraine border, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest told reporters, "To date, there has been no evidence that such a withdrawal has taken place." Adding, "We would certainly welcome a meaningful and transparent withdrawal."

The State Department echoed the White House's remarks. Spokesperson Jen Psaki, as quoted by Guardian reporter Paul Lewis, said that Russia should "use its influence" to ensure the May 25 election proceed peacefully. "It is a helpful step, but again there is far more that President Putin and the Russians can do to de-escalate the situation and ensure safe elections."

Following these comments, as the Guardian summarizes, other media outlets report the introduction of new economic sanctions by the White House against Russia on Wednesday:

The White House will remove Russia from a program offering favorable trade rates, meaning certain Russian goods are "now subject to non-preferential import duty rates" ABC's Kirit Radia reports. President Obama told Congress he plans to remove Russia from the program called the Generalized System of Preferences, according to Reuters.

Russia is "sufficiently advanced economically" and no longer needs the special treatment, the White House said. ... "Russia's actions regarding Ukraine, while not directly related to the President's decision regarding Russia's eligibility for GSP benefits, make it particularly appropriate to take this step now," Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said in an email.

Additionally, the Kremlin has now released a complete English translation of the comments Putin made during his morning meeting with Swiss President and OSCE head Didier Burkhalter, available here.