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 [...]

German industry is feeling the most pressure since the peak of the global financial crisis in 2009, putting Berlin in a difficult position as it preaches tough austerity to its neighbors. Russian sanctions are only exacerbating the economic misery. Industry orders tumbled 5.7 percent in August from July, the fastest since January 2009 when they dropped 7.7 percent, the Germany Economy Ministry [...]

Twitter has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, so it can release more information about national security requests. The company wants to publish its full transparency report. It alleges that its First Amendment rights to free speech are being violated by rules that prevent it from disclosing the quantity of national security requests it receives. Twitter can publish the number of nati [...]

Just as Apple’s embarrassing bendgate issues were receding from the headlines, a newer – and more painful – problem has emerged regarding its new set of iPhone 6 smartphones: they’re pulling out people’s hair. No, that’s not a bad metaphor for some frustrating or broken features. Multiple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users have complained online that their hair is getting caught in th [...]

Three class-action lawsuits filed Friday claim that agribusiness power Syngenta is to blame for depressed corn exports to China since the seed company released a genetically-engineered variant of the crop before it was approved by Beijing. At issue is Syngenta’s 2009 release and distribution of its MIR162 genetically-modified corn known as Agrisure Viptera, which is engineered to fend off cer [...]

Armenia has decided to hang its hat with its former Soviet ally Russia instead of joining a European free-trade agreement, President Serzh Sarksyan announced after meeting with Vladimir Putin. Armenia said it would join Russia in the Customs Union, as well as engage in the Eurasian integration process instead of negotiating a free trade agreement with the EU. [...]

Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia have together re-exported 1.7 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to Ukraine, Gazprom, Russia's biggest gas exporter said Friday, questioning the legality of the practice. “There is every reason to believe that Russian gas is being delivered to Ukraine that isn’t intended for them, but for other European customers. [...]

Monsanto’s experimental genetically modified wheat has been discovered growing in the second US field in Montana, about a year after the discovery of the company’s unapproved crop growing in Oregon disrupted US wheat exports. The plants were discovered at a test site at Montana State University, where back in 2000-2003 Monsanto was conducting field trials of its wheat, genetically modified [...]

Finland will not drop its plans to construct a nuclear power plant with Russia’s Rosatom. The project “will not shake Finland’s reputation” and “shouldn’t be mixed with politics,” Prime Minister Alexander Strubb told Radio Suomi. There are no differences in the Finnish government over the matter, the premier said. [...]

The American fast-food giant witnessed a sharp decline in global profits in August, hit by the closure of its restaurants across Russia and a "rotten meat" scandal in China. McDonald’s earnings slid with stores open at least 13 months taking a worse-than-expected hit in August, falling 3.7 percent, the Oak Brook, Illinois-based hamburger chain said in astatementon Wednesday. This is the bigge [...]

A group of high-profile trade unions have backed a growing campaign opposed to a new transatlantic trade deal critics claim will make the privatization of Britain's National Health Service (NHS) irreversible. Three of the UK’s largest unions have tendered motions to the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in Liverpool, outlining their opposition to the cross-border agreement currently being negotiated [...]

Printable solar panels are going to be available to us very soon and could power "entire skyscrapers," Australian researchers say. The very near future will see personal electronic charging transformed, but the potential is growing quickly. A team of 50 scientists in various fields worked for years to develop paper-thin, printable solar panels as part of the Victorian Organic Solar Cell Consort [...]

Reddit, Netflix, Foursquare, Mozilla, Vimeo, and Wordpress are backing the ‘Internet Slowdown’ protest against proposed US regulations that would segregate internet surfing speeds and kill “net neutrality.” The September 10 protest features a revolving icon – symbolizing slow connectivity – illustrating how losing net neutrality would harm websites and other online services. [...]

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has said the state-owned oil giant Rosneft could receive more than $40 billion in financial aid from the Russian government. The country’s largest crude producer may receive up to $40.6 billion (1.5 trillion rubles) in assistance from Russia’s National Welfare Fund. [...]

Argentina will receive the first tranche of yuan worth up to $1 billion in a massive currency swap with China before the end of this year. The deal will boost the troubled economy's foreign reserves. It comes as part of a loan worth $11 billion signed in July by Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping during hisLatin America tour- shortly before t [...]

Arms firms that provide core military components for drones deployed by the US to conduct covert strikes in violation of international law allegedly bought access to NATO's summit in Wales last week, a British human rights charity says. The defense companies concerned doled out up to £300,000 to ‘exhibit’ their military wares at the conference in Newport. Among the firms present were Gener [...]

America – its government, businesses, and people – are nearly $60 trillion in debt, according to the latest economic data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve. And private debt – not government borrowing – is the biggest reason for the huge deficit. Total US debt at the end of the first quarter of 2014, on March 31 totaled almost $59.4 trillion – up nearly $500 billion from the end of t [...]

The widening gap between America's richest and the middle and working classes is unsustainable and is unlikely to improve a survey released on Monday by the Harvard Business School has found. The study which is called “an economy doing half its job” said that while large American companies were showing signs of recovery and were maintaining their competitive edge on the world stage, many mi [...]

The cost of decommissioning Britain's nuclear sites, and particularly the Sellafield complex, has increased by billions of pounds with both regulators and the government being accused of incompetence by anti-nuclear campaigners and union leaders. The estimated cost of decommissioning the UK’s nuclear legacy over the next century has rocketed from £63.8 billion ($104.1 billion) two years ago [...]

We are at the beginning of an epoch where at some point in the future there could be an open war between the advanced powers, and there is not much faith in the ceasefire in Ukraine, Samir Dathi, National Officer of the Stop the War Coalition, told RT. Ukraine's President is confident about a ceasefire - do you think he's right to be? [...]

Nearly 500 protesters were arrested in three dozen US cities on Thursday as fast-food workers and supporters staged sit-ins and acts of civil disobedience nationwide to call attention to their low wages and lack of union representation. Organizers of the strike said that, all told, actions at fast-food restaurants occurred at about 150 cities nationwide, from Manhattan’s Times Square to Littl [...]

The European Central Bank unexpectedly cut interest rates to 0.05% from 0.15% in a strong response to combat deflation. The move comes as the EU is struggling to boost its stagnating economy, which Draghi. “Growth recovery was losing momentum,” ECB President Mario Draghi said at the news conference after the announcement was made to cut rates further. [...]