US Government and United Launch Alliance (ULA) requested the Court of Federal Claims on Wednesday to lift its temporary ban on purchasing Russian-designed rocket engines RD-180 for the US Atlas V launch systems.

The ban ruled by judge Susan Braden a week ago is temporary and may be cancelled if the Department of the Treasury, Department of Commerce and Department of State provide a paper that RD-180 supplies do not breach the President's sanction law. The document, saying that the use of these rocket engines in the US is not in direct or indirect contravention of the sanction legislation, was presented to the judge on the ULA's request on Wednesday.

It is not only the ULA, a joint venture of the aerospace industry giants Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, that is keen to see the ban lifted but also the Pentagon, or rather the US air force, on whose commission the ULA launches military and spy satellites under exclusive billion dollar contracts.

According to the Pentagon's Press Secretary, Rear Admiral John Kirby, this program will not be harmed in the foreseeable future, as the US has a stock sufficient for the following two years and contracts for RD-180 supplies from the Moscow region town Khimki for another couple of years. Besides, the temporary ban does not include the contracts already signed.

Russia and Iran have reportedly signed a secret deal on wide cooperation in space exploration, ranging from training Iranian cosmonauts in Russia to possible production of Earth observation and telecommunication satellites for Iran. The alleged deal was boosted by the West's sanctions targeting Russia in retaliation for its position on the Ukrainian crisis, Russian newspaper Izvestia reported.

"A protocol on cooperation was signed on April 10 in Tehran after the fifth session of a Russian-Iranian work group on space cooperation," the newspaper cites a source in Roscosmos, Russia's national space agency.

The satellite part of the agreement is of greatest interest for Tehran. Russia pledged to provide sample images of earth gathered by its Resurs-DK and Resurs-P satellites, which allow taking photos with resolution up to 70 cm per pixel, Izvestia said citing the text of the protocol it obtained.

Iranians plan to build domestic communication stations capable of receiving information from the Russian constellation of satellites.

"Russia has assured the Iranian side that there is no insurmountable obstacle to the delivery of receiver stations to get satellite information from the Russian earth observation satellites to communication centers located in foreign nations," the protocol reportedly says.

Gazprom says Kiev has failed to pay its mounting gas bill, which now has hit $3.5 billion. This means that in June Ukraine might receive Russian gas only on the condition of advanced payment.

"The deadline has passed, no payment has been received," said Sergey Kupriyanov, the company's representative. Earlier the company said that if the deadline was not met, Gazprom would issue an advance bill for June gas supplies on May 16.

Naftogaz, Ukraine's state-owned oil and gas company, has a long record of late payments and unpaid bills to, a problem which has only gotten worse as Ukraine has slipped into revolution and civil unrest.

The debt as of May 7, 2014 stands at $3.508 billion, Gazprom said Wednesday, up from the $2.2 billion tab at the end of April. The sum is contested by Ukraine. Moscow, Kiev and the European Commission plan to hold a new round of talks to negotiate the debt; its date will be discussed on May 12, Russia's Energy Ministry said.

A prominent Japanese politician has raised hackles as Barack Obama visits Tokyo by claiming it's an 'open secret' that he and the first lady are headed for divorce, and that the president has been using Secret Service agents to cover for him as he pursues extramarital affairs.

Kazuyuki Hamada, who sits in the upper house of Japan's parliament, earned his PhD a half-mile from the White House at George Washington University, and emerged as a shrill commentator on America's economy and foreign policy.

In 2009 he also joined the ranks of the so-called 'birthers,' arguing in a book titled 'Who is Obama?' that the president likely wasn't born in the United States.

But it's his more recent writing that's capturing the attention of the international press this week.

Hamada complained April 5 on his official blog about Obama's decision to visit Tokyo without first lady Michelle Obama in tow. 'His approval numbers are dragging down near 30 per cent,' Hamada wrote, according to an English translation.

'The president has been criticized for having no visions or leadership to solve domestic and diplomatic problems, some even ridiculing him as the worst president of the postwar era.'

'The biggest reason - of many - for the collapse of his reputation is his failed relationship with his wife,' Hamada claimed

Some 4,000 combatants supporting the Kiev authorities have been brought into Odessa, Georgy Fyodorov, deputy head of the Russian Civic Chamber's Committee for Coordination of Aid to Residents of Ukraine said Wednesday.

"Very alarming reports are coming in from our friends in Odessa," he said. "They suggest that control over the city has practically shifted to (tycoon Ihor) Kolomoisky because Igor Palitsya, the new governor of the Odessa region, is his henchman."

"Unfortunately, we have reports that armed militants of the Right Sector, fighters of the Dnipr and Kyiv-1 special task force battalions, and ultras of the FC Dnipro have been brought into the city and the overall number of the combatants propping up the Kiev regime exceeds 4,000 there now," Fyodorov said.

"The most dangerous thing is that local police have handed them the lists of the pro-federation movement activists," he said. "In addition, we have the information the whole city is blocked by checkpoints and traffic inside is practically paralyzed."

Fyodorov said the reports coming from Odessa were "a cry for salvation". "People are asking the Public Chamber and me personally to appeal to international organizations and to the authorities in Kiev to avert the planned actions of terror and to stop the city's slide into genocide."

"We're working on this very scrupulously now and watching the situation inside and outside of the city," he said.

Powerful Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky was appointed governor of Dnipropetrovsk region by the incumbent government in March 2014.

The U.S. Supreme Court decision to refuse to hear our case concerning Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which permits the military to seize U.S. citizens and hold them indefinitely in military detention centers without due process, means that this provision will continue to be law. It means the nation has entered a post-constitutional era. It means that extraordinary rendition of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil by our government is legal. It means that the courts, like the legislative and executive branches of government, exclusively serve corporate power - one of the core definitions of fascism. It means that the internal mechanisms of state are so corrupted and subservient to corporate power that there is no hope of reform or protection for citizens under our most basic constitutional rights. It means that the consent of the governed - a poll by OpenCongress.com showed that this provision had a 98 percent disapproval rating - is a cruel joke. And it means that if we do not rapidly build militant mass movements to overthrow corporate tyranny, including breaking the back of the two-party duopoly that is the mask of corporate power, we will lose our liberty.

"In declining to hear the case Hedges v. Obama and declining to review the NDAA, the Supreme Court has turned its back on precedent dating back to the Civil War era that holds that the military cannot police the streets of America," said attorney Carl Mayer, who along with Bruce Afran devoted countless unpaid hours to the suit. "This is a major blow to civil liberties. It gives the green light to the military to detain people without trial or counsel in military installations, including secret installations abroad. There is little left of judicial review of presidential action during wartime."

Afran, Mayer and I brought the case to the U.S. Southern District Court of New York in January 2012. I was later joined by co-plaintiffs Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, journalist Alexa O'Brien, RevolutionTruth founder Tangerine Bolen, Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir and Occupy London activist Kai Wargalla.

Anyone who looks carefully behind the veil of words cannot find democracy in America. For years I have been writing that the US government is no longer accountable to law or to the people (see, for example, my book, How America Was Lost).

The Constitution has been set aside, and the executive branch is degenerating into Caesarism.

Government is used to impose agendas that result from the symbiotic relationship between the neoconservative ideology of US world hegemony and the economic interests of powerful private interest groups, such as Wall Street, the military/security complex, the Israel Lobby, agribusiness, and extractive industries (energy, mining, and timber).

Dollar imperialism, threats, bribes, and wars are means by which US hegemony is extended. These agendas are pursued without the knowledge or approval of the American people and in spite of their opposition.

Professor Martin Gilens at Princeton University and Professor Benjamin Page of Northwestern University have examined American governance and have concluded that the US is an oligarchy ruled by powerful rich private interest groups and that the US government has only a superficial resemblance to a democracy. Their analysis is forthcoming in publication in the journal, Perspectives on Politics.

Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian businessman who amassed his fortune in Russia's gas trade, was indicted on U.S. bribery charges tied to a $500 million Indian mining project in a case he says is politically motivated.

Firtash, 48, allegedly conspired with five other men and met with Indian government officials as part of an effort to pay $18.5 million in bribes to facilitate the project, aimed at generating titanium product sales to firms including an Illinois-based company that wasn't identified in the indictment.

"Firtash was the leader of the enterprise," Chicago U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon said yesterday in a statement.

The businessman, who is fighting extradition from Austria, may possess information about deals involving Russian state gas exporter OAO Gazprom (OGZD) that the U.S. would consider corrupt, according to Mikhail Korchemkin, a former analyst for the Soviet Union's Gas Ministry and founder of Malvern, Pennsylvania-based East European Gas Analysis.

That information might help U.S. lawmakers develop harsher sanctions against the inner circle of Russian President Vladimir Putin over Russia's annexation of Crimea, Korchemkin said. U.S. prosecutors said the arrest isn't related to the Ukraine crisis.

The US approach to violence in Ukraine is hypocritical, executive director of the Ron Paul Institute, Daniel McAdams, told RT. Holding an election in such a climate is impossible, yet the US will accept any result of the "wonderfully democratic" vote.

RT:The US has repeatedly praised Kiev for trying to de-escalate the situation, yet we all saw what happened in Odessa and what looks like it was allowed to happen...How do those things tally up?

Daniel McAdams: Well it is interesting, because in Kiev, not that many months ago, a couple of months to be exact, unarmed police forces were sent out against the violent protesters, and the US government - including the president and the secretary of state have - said they were "disgusted" by the show of force against these protesters. And you see in Ukraine, it is obvious that the government in Kiev is using the military against its own citizens. It is blockading cities, starving people out. This is exactly what the US used as a pretext for attack in places like Libya and elsewhere. So the hypocrisy of the US side is absolutely stunning.

RT: We heard Marie Harf from the US State Department again praising Ukraine's "restraint," where she said that Kiev has a "responsibility to maintain law and order for their own people," and that "the onus really is on the Russian government to pull back." What is your comment to that?

DM: You have to wonder what reality these people are occupying. They have tried pulling a fast one, the State Department did. A couple of weeks ago when they put out those phony photos what they claimed were the Russian forces in Ukraine. The person who took those pictures, as you know, said they are completely phony. The New York Times was burned on the US State Department lies. To its credit, the NYT has actually sent some people into eastern Ukraine, and they have reported just a couple of days ago, that actually these militias don't contain any Russians whatsoever and the people are not necessarily wanting to join Russia anyway. They are using old, worn out weapons, so the State Department just continues to pile lie upon lie. It is absolutely revolting.

France's new environment minister Ségolène Royal has taken to Twitter to deny claims of a cover-up in her office.

Le Point reported that she has banned female staff at her ministry from wearing plunging necklines.

She tweeted: "I deny of course the ridiculous rumour concerning the prohibition of low necklines in the ministry."

She added: "The only instruction given regards greater rigour in the use of public funds, as the French expect from us."

Le Point had also said that she has outlawed smoking in the ministry's courtyard and gardens in her presence, claimed that an usher orders other staff to stand aside whenever she walks around the ministry, and reported that she insists on peace and quiet during meals.