Ukrainian CyberBerkut hacktivists claim that they have penetrated the internal network of Ukraine's Defense Ministry and found proof that Kiev is getting secret data from MH17 crash investigators, including information which implies its involvement. A document, posted on the website cyber-berkut.net, and allegedly downloaded from Ukraine’s Defense Ministry network, dates back to August 7 and [...]

Although there is always reason to celebrate the toppling of an autocrat, the outcome of the Iraq war and the rise of Islamic State have demonstrated in horrific terms that the alternative can be even worse. In mid-April 2003, German author Hans Magnus Enzensberger published a piece in the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in which he celebrated the fall of Saddam Hussein. [...]

Western nations are fond of using “democracy promotion” as a justification for interfering in other countries, including overthrowing elected leaders (as in Ukraine). But Western democracies themselves often fall short of democratic values, as John Chuckman explains. I read and heard about Hong Kong’s students putting themselves at risk demonstrating for democracy, and my first instinct w [...]

The overwhelming majority of Russians think the US is their main enemy, and more than half name China as Russia's main friend, a recent poll shows. According to the research conducted by the influential Russian VTSIOM center, the number of Russians who think that USA is their country’s main foe grew from 25 percent in 2008 to 73 percent currently. [...]

British MPs will vote on Monday on an historic motion to symbolically recognize Palestine as an independent state. With Labour instructing its MPs to vote in favour, the non-binding motion would increase pressure on PM David Cameron over the issue. Proposed by the chair of Labour Friends of Palestine, the back-bencher’s motion also has the support of Liberal Democrat MPs. [...]

A Reuters examination of Ukraine's probes into February's Maidan shootings, which left over 100 dead and nearly a thousand injured, uncovered 'serious flaws' in the case against Berkut officers, arrested by the country's officials. The research, carried out by journalists, is based on interviews with prosecutors, defense attorneys, protesters, police officers and legal experts. [...]

The Ukrainian economy, weakened by war, needs additional funding from sources beyond the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to stay afloat, the fund's head Christine Lagarde has said. The IMF’s December estimate of the cash needed has turned out to be insufficient following the continued conflict in the country. [...]

Leaders of Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia have signed a treaty that will make Erevan a new member of the Eurasian Economic Union, a free trade zone made up of former Soviet states to rival the European Union. The deal was signed Friday at the summit of the Eurasian Economic Union in Minsk. [...]

The Russian Lower House is calling on international organizations and national parliaments and governments to investigate crimes against civilians in south-east Ukraine, and to step up efforts to find a peaceful settlement in the region. The motion was passed by 428 votes in favor with only one abstention. [...]

Activists will rally in Westminster on Saturday as part of a Europe-wide protest against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which critics say will eradicate public services including the NHS and the BBC. More than 1,000 people are expected to march against the treaty in London over the weekend, with many more holding demonstrations in UK cities and throughout Europe. [...]

With his second and final term in office nearly half-way done, United States President Barack Obama, who enjoyed record popularity after first being elected in 2008, is struggling to keep up with the ratings of wildly unpopular predecessor George W. Bush. Fallout isn’t unexpected during so-called “lame duck” sessions in which reelection is ruled out and campaigning for office is no longer [...]

Students at the Complutense University of Madrid kicked out several radical Ukrainians who stormed into a lecture, trying to provoke a fight. Posters reading, 'Ukraine besieged by fascism will not happen,' appeared in campus halls after the incident. The university faculty of political sciences and sociology is currently hosting an exhibition titled, "Humanitarian crisis in southeastern Ukraine [...]

As President Petro Poroshenko signed the lustration law, the trash dumping of lawmakers in Ukraine is gaining momentum. The General Prosecutor warned that there is a thin line between the so-called "trash lustration" and lynching. Poroshenko signed the law that establishes the legal framework for checking government officials linked to the rule of ousted President Yanukovich. [...]

Airplane cabin cleaning crews at New York's LaGuardia International Airport began a 24-hour strike on Wednesday, citing, in part, possible exposure to the Ebola virus. Meanwhile, a poll found most Americans want flights banned from Ebola-ravaged areas. Around 200 Air Serv employees who work on domestic flights to LaGuardia began their strike on Wednesday evening. [...]

Industry illegally injected about 3 billion gallons of fracking wastewater into central California drinking-water and farm-irrigation aquifers, the state found after the US Environmental Protection Agency ordered a review of possible contamination. According to documents obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity, the California State Water Resources Board found that at least nine of the 1 [...]

Ukrainian Security Service seeks to reach the crash site of the Malaysian MH17 flight to fabricate at least some evidence which will allow Kiev to conceal the true causes of the catastrophe from the world, said Russia's Defense ministry. “One cannot but feel angry about yet another attempt by the Ukrainian security service chief to use absolutely groundless allegations in a bid to persuade th [...]

Video has surfaced appearing to show a New York City police officer taking $1,300 from a man who says he was robbed and then pepper-sprayed by the cop during a stop-and-frisk last month that ended without arrest. The New York Daily News published exclusive video of the September 16 incident on Wednesday this week and reported that the Brooklyn district attorney’s office is now investigation a [...]

Winter is around the corner, and Kiev will not have enough time to fill its underground storage facilities with the 18-20 billion cubic meters of gas needed to survive the winter, and ensure EU supplies, warns Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller. Every year before winter, Ukraine stores up gas in its underground storage facilities in preparation to distribute it to homes and buildings when the cold weat [...]

The FBI counter-terrorism division is calling on to Americans to report on fellow citizens engaged in suspicious activities to help identify possible terrorists, in the first place those connected to terrorist activities overseas. In a statement published by the FBI on Tuesday, assistant director of the counter-terrorism division Michael Steinbach said the Bureau needs “the public's assistanc [...]