Last night, maintenance party 28 of Kiev's forces started advancement in settlement Mariinka around the city Donetsk. Also, pro-Kiev militant attacked in the sector of Donetsk airport. City Donetsk, settlement Shirokino and town Gorlovka were hard shelled by artillery of Ukraine's forces. Witnesses report about causalities among civilians there. Furthermore, Kiev's military hit passenger-train around town Yasinovataya yesterday. 22 train carriages were burned. Meanwhile, according to Novorossian warriors' reports Kiev are concentrating military equipment including battle tanks, armored vehicles and artillery around town Dzerjinsk and settlement Shirokino.

Ukraine's parliament on Thursday backed a decree allowing the country to rescind its commitments outlined in the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Social Charter. The decree was passed at second reading by 249 votes in the Verkhovna Rada, 23 more than the minimum required. Thus, now Kiev government forces and pro-Kiev militants won't violate Ukrainian law when they torture civilians and prisoners of war. Though, when is it stopped them?

Washington has blocked the final document of a UN conference that reviewed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, accusing Egypt of manipulating the gathering to target Israel. Moscow has slammed the US for rendering the four-week meeting futile.

The 9th international conference was held in New York from April 27 until May 22. A total of 162 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) participant states were in attendance. These conferences are held every five years to assess the worldwide disarmament process.

The blocked document included a plan to establish a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East. To do this, Egypt, who first proposed such a zone in 1980, suggested a regional UN conference on banning weapons of mass destruction. The gathering would have no pre-determined agenda and would go ahead with or without the presence of Israel.

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This week, join our hosts as they discuss some recent, outrageous news stories involving thuggish, power-obsessed, pathological cops, and the big picture of what's really going on.

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The Ukrainian forces have shelled the territory of the Donetsk People's Republic 33 times over the last 24 hours, DPR defense ministry said on Wednesday. According to the DPR defense ministry, the Kiev forces shelled Donetsk (Kievsky district and the airport), Gorlovka, Zhabichevo, Nizhnee Lozovoye, Shirokino, Kalinovka, Ozeryanovka and Belaya Kamenka.

The Donetsk People's Republic has returned to Kiev 550 prisoners since the commission on prisoners of war was launched in August 2014, Liliya Rodionova from the commission told the Donetsk news agency on Wednesday. "The Ukrainian side, for its part, has returned to us 564 prisoners, less than 200 of them being militias," she said. She also said those returned to Kiev had been seized in combat, while most of those released and returned to the republic were civilians. The "all for all" prisoner swap is one of the key points in the Package of Measures on implementation of the September 2014 Minsk agreements, signed in Minsk on February 12.

A protest against the construction of a new shopping mall in Kiev turned into a violent confrontation when a melee broke out among two camps of protesters and police. Fifteen police officers were reported injured in the incident. Activist campaigning against construction of a new mall, 'Le Boulevard,' near Kiev's "Osokorky" metro station tried to demolish a fence surrounding the construction site late on Tuesday, succeeding in inflicting much damage to the property. They were confronted by an unknown group of men wearing camouflage and masked in balaclavas. Local media outlets branded these as 'titushki' - Ukrainian slang for hired thugs. However, for independent observers 'titushki' look similar to 'democratic activists of Euromaidan'. Thus, one pro-maidan group clashed with another pro-maidan group in order to defend economic interests of their owners.

Russia will take retaliatory measures to protect itself if Ukraine decides to station US anti-missile defense systems in its territory. "In case there are missile defense systems stationed in Ukraine, Russia will have to take retaliatory measures to ensure its own safety," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday. He was commenting on a recent statement by Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine Aleksandr Turchinov, which claimed that Ukraine want to station components of an anti-missile defense system in Ukraine. The statement also calls for additional international sanctions against Russia, including blocking the Bosphorus strait from Russian navy vessels and shutting Russia off from the international SWIFT financial transfer system.

FBI agents can't point to any major terrorism cases they've cracked thanks to the key snooping powers in the Patriot Act, the Justice Department's inspector general said in a report Thursday that could complicate efforts to keep key parts of the law operating.

Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said that between 2004 and 2009, the FBI tripled its use of bulk collection under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows government agents to compel businesses to turn over records and documents, and increasingly scooped up records of Americans who had no ties to official terrorism investigations.

The FBI did finally come up with procedures to try to minimize the information it was gathering on nontargets, but it took far too long, Mr. Horowitz said in the 77-page report, which comes just as Congress is trying to decide whether to extend, rewrite or entirely nix Section 215.

Backers say the Patriot Act powers are critical and must be kept intact, particularly with the spread of the threat from terrorists. But opponents have doubted the efficacy of Section 215, particularly when it's used to justify bulk data collection such as in the case of the National Security Agency's phone metadata program, revealed in leaks from former government contractor Edward Snowden.

The new report adds ammunition to those opponents, with the inspector general concluding that no major cases have been broken by use of the Patriot Act's records-snooping provisions.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that Russia will decide on lifting food embargo, which bans imports from countries that imposed sanctions on Moscow, taking into account both the European Union's actions and Russia's national interests.

Russia will decide on lifting food embargo, which bans imports from countries that imposed sanctions on Moscow, taking into account both the European Union's actions and Russia's national interests, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday.

"We will make these decisions, if you will forgive me my pompous expression, going by our national interests," Medvedev told a Russian television channel.

It started in April with a rash of deals between Argentina and Russia during President Cristina Kirchner's visit to Moscow.

And it continues with a $53 billion investment bang as Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visits Brazil during the first stop of yet another South American commercial offensive - complete with a sweet metaphor: Li riding on a made in China subway train that will ply a new metro line in Rio de Janeiro ahead of the 2016 Olympics.

Where is the US in all this? Nowhere; little by little, yet inexorably, BRICS members China - and in a smaller measure, Russia - have been no less than restructuring commerce and infrastructure all across Latin America.

Russia has urged its citizens to weigh all the risks before traveling abroad, warning that the US is on a global "hunt" for Russian nationals, according to the latest statement published by the Foreign Ministry.

Russian citizens abroad face a very "real" threat of being detained or arrested by US law enforcement and special services, especially when traveling to countries that have extradition treaties with Washington, the ministry said on its website.

There have been over a dozen cases demonstrating just that, the statement added. "The American authorities continue the unacceptable practice of 'hunting' for Russians all over the world, ignoring the norms of international laws and twisting the arms of other states."

American forces have in effect kidnapped Russians from other countries, the statement said, citing the case of Roman Seleznyov, who was abducted by American agents in the Maldives, and then forcibly transported to the US in July 2014. He is still being held in custody, awaiting trial.

"By believing that it is allowed to do all it wants, Washington goes as far as kidnapping our citizens," the ministry said.

Those who get detained by US services face prejudicial justice, including threats demanding confessions, despite lack of any evidence. Even if the American authorities fail to secure a confession, the detainees are slapped with huge prison terms, the ministry said.

Examples of such cases include Viktor Bout and Konstantin Yaroshenko.

The Obama administration approved a $1.9 billion arms sale to Israel in recent days as "compensation" for the US nuclear deal with Iran, which the Israeli regime staunchly opposes.

Among the tens of thousands of bombs included in the weapons package are 3,000 Hellfire missiles, 12,000 general purpose bombs and 750 bunker buster bombs that can penetrate up to twenty feet, or six meters, of reinforced concrete.

This generous weapons gift comes in the wake of Israel's most ferocious attack on the Gaza Strip to date, in which the Israeli army deliberately targeted civilians, including children, as a matter of policy.

The degree of firepower Israel unleashed on Gaza was so extreme that senior US military officials who participated in the illegal invasion and criminal destruction of Iraq were left stunned.

Even the Pentagon and State Department were forced to acknowledge that Israel did not do enough to avoid civilian deaths. But this did not prevent the Obama administration from rushing to provide Israel with the means to carry out more atrocities.

I already knew that Osama bin Laden read my book before the headlines this week - but I'm still angry that he gave The Best Democracy Money Can Buy only four-and-a-half stars on his Amazon review. Obviously, something in the book pissed him off, because he never friended me on Facebook.

It was actually quite embarrassing to learn that Bin Laden was reading my tome - and a few by my homie Noam Chomsky. It's embarrassing because it's clear that Bin Laden was more well-read than our president of the time (though, in George W Bush's defence, there's much to be learned from My Pet Goat).

I do hope Osama made it to page 229. I talk about a guy who worked at my office, Clinton Davis. Before I left to write for the Guardian and Observer, my office was in Tower 2 of the World Trade Center. Davis, a cop, was safe at ground level, but he ran upstairs to save others - and disappeared, forever. Did Bin Laden get a little laugh out of that one? At least he got to know his victim's name.