Vladimir Putin said that Kiev is being armed by Western allies, according to Moscow's information, but insisted he was "optimistic" about implementing the Minsk agreement, noting that the intensity of fighting has declined.

"According to our data, weapons are already being supplied [to Kiev]," the Russian leader said at a press conference following his meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. "This is not surprising. I am convinced that whoever is supplying the weapons, the number of victims may grow, but the outcome will not change. The vast majority of soldiers serving in the Ukrainian army have no motivation to participate in an internecine conflict away from home, while the Donbass militia have every reason to defend their families."

Putin urged the Ukrainian government "not to prevent the soldiers in the Debaltsevo cauldron from surrendering, or at least not punish those who simply want to save their lives."

Up to 5,000 Ukrainian troops are thought to be surrounded in this key area deep inside rebel territory.

"Our mission is to save the lives of those caught in the cauldron, and to make sure that the situation does not inflame relations between Kiev and the rebels further," Putin said.

On February 12, Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, announced that the IMF had reached an agreement with the Ukrainian government on a new economic reform program. Ms Lagarde's statement, made in Brussels, came only minutes after peace negotiations between the heads of the German, French, Russian und Ukrainian governments in Minsk, Belarus, had ended. The timing was no coincidence. Washington had been left out of the negotiations and now reacted by sending its most powerful financial organization to the forefront in order to deliver a clear message to the world: that the US will not loosen its grip on the Ukraine, if not by sending weapons, then at least economically and financially.

Mme Lagarde's assertions that the program ,would support immediate economic stabilization" and spell ,a turning point for the Ukraine" are as far removed from reality as the main stream media's depiction of the IMF as an aid organization helping a drowning country to survive in times of trouble. Not a single cent of the loans will go to the Ukrainian working people. Instead, the money will be used to prop up the Yatseniuk government which is totally subservient to US interests, and enable it to service the debts incurred by its predecessors in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, to pay off most of its military expenses of around $ 250 million per month for the continuation of a war against its own population and to fill at least some holes in the state budget which are due to the country's ongoing economic deterioration.

The loans will be based on the terms of an economic program for Ukraine for 2015 - 2020, passed by the Kiev parliament in December 2014, and are tied to harsh conditions laid down in a letter of intent, signed by prime minister Yatseniuk and president Poroshenko in August 2014. Some of the measures have already been implemented, others will follow. Among those already in force is the flexible exchange rate regime which has not only led to a 67% devaluation of the hrivna, lowering the average monthly wage of Ukrainian workers to less than $ 60, but has also opened the doors for international currency speculators who have already made millions by indebting themselves in hrivnia and repaying their debts in euros and dollars.

The rate of inflation, running at 25 % in 2014 and expected to rise even higher in 2015, and a hike in gas prices by 50 % in May 2014 made survival almost impossible for the weakest 20 % of the population who already lived below the poverty line in 2013. Among the measures still to come are the layoff of 10 % of the country's public employees and the partial privatization of health care and education. The retirement age for women is to be raised by 10 years, that for men by 5 years, most benefits for old age pensioners are to be abolished, the pharmaceuticals market is to be deregulated. Retirement pensions will be frozen, and there will be no more free lunches for school children and patients in hospitals. Benefits for victims of the 1986 nuclear disaster in Chernobyl are to be cut, and the boundaries of the officially designated radioactive hazard zone will be revised. The country's monthly minimum wage is to remain at 1,218.00 hrivna ($ 46 at the current rate of exchange) until at least November 2015.

Sudan's President has claimed the CIA, America's intelligence agency, and Israel's Mossad are behind the Islamist militant groups Boko Haram and Isis.

Omar al-Bashir used an interview with Euronews to claim there was a connection between the American and Israeli intelligence organisations and both extremist groups.

He spoke after Isis released a video purporting to show the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya, an act that prompted Egypt to respond with air strikes avenging the massacre.

Ukrainian troops and rebels in the country's east have been blaming each other for sporadic ceasefire violations. Both sides say they only respond to attacks launched by adversary forces and question the possibility of heavy artillery withdrawal.

The ceasefire is largely holding in eastern Ukraine, the head of the OSCE mission there, Ertugrul Apakan, said Monday. He added that the one exception was Debaltsevo, a town where an estimated 5,000 Ukrainian task force remains trapped, surrounded by rebel forces.

Ceasefire holds in E.#Ukraine, except for Devaltsevo - head of @OSCE monitoring mission http://t.co/1tB46jed30 pic.twitter.com/Yb8hLLtC97

— RT (@RT_com) February 16, 2015

"The situation in Debaltsevo is still tense," the envoy of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin, said Monday, Tass reported. "The Ukrainian forces continue shelling. And they are still trying to break through the encirclement from the outer side. It is impossible to cease fire completely there. That is why the self-defense forces have to respond."

He also said the rebels were "ready to provide a 'green corridor'" for the troops to be able to exit Debaltsevo. They only want them to leave with no weapons and ammunition.

Kiev has refused to acknowledge it has trapped military forces in Debaltsevo, a strategic railway hub that connects the breakaway regions of Lugansk and Donetsk. Military spokesman Vladislav Seleznyov also said the army would not leave.

"There are the Minsk agreements, according to which Debaltsevo is ours. We will not leave," he told Reuters by phone.

The Ukrainian military accused the rebels of shelling army positions 112 times over the first day of the ceasefire. They said five soldiers were killed and 25 wounded.

In recent years the US prestige around the world has been deteriorating rapidly due to the unpopular, outright failed policies, which is forcing the White House to go back to an old and dusty book of tricks that had previously been used by to create an image of prosperity and happiness. In actuality, a number of states around the world paid a bitter price in an attempt to recreate this image, which led to a wave of "color revolutions" in pursuit of "American-style democracy", due in part to the actions of Victoria Nuland, John McCain and the likes of them. It's no wonder then that there's nobody left in line for some more US-style democracy.

The stagnant US political machine is extremely reluctant to change its ways, therefore it is repeating the scenarios that have already been tested, regardless of the fact how poorly they fared previously.

Can you say PANDERING HYPOCRITE?

Isn't it wonderful when one's vaccination schedule magically lines up with his need to pull a political stunt and appease the puppet masters running the show?

Throw this one on the ever mounting pile of evidence that Rand is an establishment toy and nothing more.

P.S. - Chris Christie is openly a turd, but Rand is worse because he tries to cloak himself in this blanket of patriotic freedom and people's rights while he's obviously willing to sell out every last principle he has (if he even has them) to go along and get along with the system, and he just continues to prove it over and over and over again.

BBC Propagandist runs from incoming Ukrainian artillery, but calls it "outgoing" rebel shelling.

Apparently in the Western media, you should not believe your own eyes or reason - out is in, up is down, and left is right.

In one more incredibly biased TV report from the Donetsk airport, a BBC journalist started accusing Donetsk self defense forces of breaking the ceasefire while almost getting killed by a Ukrainian "peace-loving" sticking-to-ceasefire shell.

First, Ian Pannell, international BBC corespondent, implicitly accuses rebels of a "scorched earth policy".

Than in an almost surreal moment while saying that artillery fire "appears" to be mostly "outgoing", there's a clear and visible evidence of incoming Ukrainian fire, resulting in an dangerous explosion extremely close to and directly behind him.

Fortunately enough "outgoing fire" hasn't landed on his thick head.

A citizen's media group has lodged a complaint against German television channel ZDF for airing a photograph of Russian tanks in eastern Ukraine, which in reality were Russian tanks on patrol in South Ossetia in 2008.

Just days after a US politician presented on the Senate floor falsified images of Russian tanks purported to be taken in eastern Ukraine, one of Germany's largest broadcasters appears guilty of the very same error.

The German media watchdog group, known as the Permanent Open Committee of Media Monitoring, has issued a complaint against federal channel Zweiten Deutschen Fernsehens (ZDF) over false reporting on the situation in eastern Ukraine, Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten has reported.

[T]he whole world had become strange and unsettling. Apart from the fascinating rules I knew, the great game had clearly had other secret rules that I had failed to grasp. There must have been something deceitful and false about it. Where could one find stability and security, faith and confidence, if world events could be so deceptive? If triumph upon triumph led to ultimate disaster, and the true rules of history were revealed only retrospectively in a shattering outcome? I stared into the abyss. I felt a horror for life. (Defying Hitler, p. 27)

This is how one young German man described his experience of the events that led to Nazi Germany. His name was Sebastian Haffner. He later became a journalist and historian, and his memoir, Defying Hitler, offers a candid, insightful perspective on the real impact of Nazism: its effect on the inner lives of the people who experienced it.

It's books like Defying Hitler that are essential if we, as a species, are ever going to learn how to remove ourselves from the seemingly endless cycles of affluence, ignorance, oppression and mutual destruction. Dry military histories, political memoirs, academic analyses, newspaper articles - all can provide some important details, but they miss the point. They miss the heart of the matter, the essence of the situation that makes it matter. In short, they lack psychological depth.

Talks between Greece and euro zone finance ministers over the country's debt crisis broke down on Monday when Athens rejected a proposal to request a six-month extension of its international bailout package as "unacceptable".

The unexpectedly rapid collapse raised doubts about Greece's future in the single currency area after a new leftist-led government vowed to scrap the 240 billion euro ($272.4 billion) bailout, reverse austerity policies and end cooperation with EU/IMF inspectors.

Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who chaired the meeting, said Athens had until Friday to request an extension, otherwise the bailout would expire at the end of the month. The Greek state and its banks would then face a looming cash crunch.