British actor and comedian Russell Brand is due to speak in Vienna today at a conference on international drug regulation. Brand, a former heroin addict, has spoken on previous occasions about the need to shift drug regulation away from prohibition and towards an approach with more compassion for drug users. [...]

The EU has imposed new sanctions to prevent Vladimir Putin from further escalating the crisis in Ukraine. Berlin has played a leading role in the punitive actions, despite protests from the German business community. There's no turning back for Merkel. [...]

White House suggests executive order might not be the end of measures taken in response to events in Ukraine. President Barack Obama has extended financial sanctions against Russia to include wealthy supporters of Vladimir Putin and a bank said to be close to the Kremlin, in a bid to deter further aggression against Ukraine. [...]

The US will not get involved in a "€œmilitary excursion"€ in Ukraine, President Barack Obama said, stressing that Washington will pursue diplomatic means in the standoff with Russia over Crimea. "We are not going to be getting into a military excursion in Ukraine," Obama told San Diego’s KNSD TV. [...]

A unit of the "€˜Maidan Self-Defense Force"€™ may have played a key part in a raid on a liquor factory in Ukraine. Armed civilians used smoke grenades to storm the building as court bailiffs stood by. The take-over of the Nemiroff vodka plant in the city of Nemirov, Vinnytsia Region in central Ukraine, happened on Wednesday. [...]

An effort to put a ballot initiative in front of Colorado voters regarding the labeling of genetically modified foods was allowed to proceed after the state Supreme Court dismissed a challenge by biotech and food industry outfits. For Initiative #48 to make it on the November ballot, supporters must now gather 86,105 petition signatures and turn them into the state by early August... [...]

Remember the Mainstream's frothing over Liz Wahl'€™s resignation from RT? How she was feted by the networks, supported by the beast, and embraced heartily by neo-con Russia-haters? Turns out things might not be as spontaneous as they seem – in fact, in the paranoid world of neo-con American journalism things are very rarely spontaneous. [...]

Treatment of radioactive water at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant might be indefinitely suspended after malfunctions crippled the water purification process and recontaminated thousands of tons of partially purified water, Japanese media report. [...]

Russian president delivers speech laced with patriotic bluster and anger at west, saying Russia has been "cheated again and again." Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of Crimea on Tuesday in a searing speech to assembled political elites in Moscow shot through with angry rhetoric about western aggression and hypocrisy. [...]

NSA general counsel Rajesh De contradicts months of angry denials from companies like Yahoo and Google. The senior lawyer for the National Security Agency stated unequivocally on Wednesday that US technology companies were fully aware of the surveillance agency’s widespread collection of data, contradicting months of angry denials from the firms. [...]

A State Department spokeswoman claimed that Russia "€˜shot first"€™ in an incident in Crimea, which left two people killed near a military facility. But when asked to back the allegations with facts or at least explain herself, she just said to move on. [...]

The recent on-air resignation by former RT news anchor Liz Wahl was just the latest stunt orchestrated by a neo-conservative think tank, according to a new investigative report shedding light on the group'€™s role in an ongoing Cold War revival campaign. [...]

A secret spy program developed by the National Security Agency and reported publically for the first time on Tuesday has given the United States the ability to digitally record the contents of each and every phone call occurring across entire nations. [...]

Ron Paul is once again speaking up about the situation in Crimea, and this time the former congressman is condemning critics from his own country who are seemingly obsessed with the recent secession. The former Republican representative for Texas told RT earlier this month that he didn’t think the United States had any business meddling in overseas affairs and that worsening tensions in Ukraine [...]

The EU is a hurry to sign the long-awaited association treaty with Ukraine, while the new leaders in Kiev are turning to Washington for support. Whose interests were at stake during the Ukrainian revolution? Should the promises of the West be trusted by the new authorities? Sophie talks to former US intelligence officer Scott Rickard to find out the answers to these questions. [...]

Nafeez Ahmed: Natural and social scientists develop new model of how "perfect storm" of crises could unravel global system. A new study sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution. [...]

A new Chinese stealth fighter jet'€™s design includes details obtained in a Chinese cyber-spying operation conducted seven years ago against the F-35 Lightning II, according to a new report based on conversations with US military officials and contractors. The Chinese espionage plot, dubbed Operation Byzantine Hades by US intelligence agencies, primarily targeted government as well as US industr [...]

US President Barack Obama has ordered that sanctions be applied against 11 Russian and Ukrainian officials, the White House said. Earlier, the EU imposed sanctions against 21 officials after Crimea declared its independence.  The US has imposed sanctions against Russian and Ukrainian officials on Monday, with the White House stating that "the actions and policies" of the Russian government with r [...]

American and German inspectors will make observation flights over Russia and Belarus within the framework of the international treaty on Open Skies. The mission is set to verify the true position of Russian troops and military equipment. [...]