“Revenge and political motives” drove a 54-year-old Tunisian immigrant to plot and execute the murder of an elderly Austrian couple over their alleged sympathy towards a far-right party, local police said. [...]

Deputies in the Czech Republic voted overwhelmingly in favor of a constitutional amendment allowing ordinary citizens to carry arms and use them in case of a public emergency such as terrorism. The Czech parliament has approved a constitutional amendment on security that allows ordinary citizens to take up arms against terrorists. [...]

Syria’s Ambassador to China and former Ambassador to the United States Imad Moustapha stated that Beijing has never played an active role in Syrian crisis, but always vetoed resolutions sponsored by the West to sanction the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad. [...]

President Donald Trump ignored important intelligence reports when he decided to attack Syria after he saw pictures of dying children. Seymour M. Hersh investigated the case of the alleged Sarin gas attack. On April 6, United States President Donald Trump authorized an early morning Tomahawk missile strike on Shayrat Air Base in central Syria in retaliation for what he said was a deadly nerve a [...]

According to secret documents obtained by a Russian intelligence service, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO planned to split Russia into several smaller parts, a former secret agent told Russia's Rossiya 1 broadcaster. After the collapse of the USSR, NATO planned to divide Russia into small parts diminishing the state to the size of the medieval Moscow principality, a vetera [...]

The book called "The Plot to Scapegoat Russia: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Putin" has been published in the United States, author Dan Kovalik told Sputnik. The book was published in June by Skyhorse Publishing. The author is a US journalist, human, labor rights lawyer and peace activist, as well as Adjunct Professor of Law at the Pitt Law faculty of the Univer [...]

The Ukrainian Embassy in the UK has issued a sharp criticism of the Daily Mail, which ran a story effectively recognizing the city of Sevastopol and the Crimean Peninsula as Russian territory. On Monday, the Daily Mail ran a small piece about a WWII-era German parachute mine that was discovered in the port city of Sevastopol, and taken to the open sea for safe disposal. [...]

The US Defense Intelligence Agency has published a glossy new 100 page+ declassified intelligence report called 'Russia Military Power', a rehash of reports which were released during the 1980s called 'Soviet Military Power'. Like its predecessors, 'Russia Military Power' seems designed to ensure a bigger defense budget for the Pentagon. [...]

The US statement on Syrian plans to use chemical weapons is to see how far they could push before Iran reacts. Then we will have a war against Iran which the administration in Washington seems to want, says former CIA officer Philip Giraldi. [...]

The US has “a very active deconfliction line” with Russia in order to not “get drawn into a fight” in Syria, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis said. Mattis touched upon the ongoing operation in Syria at a press briefing on Tuesday. [...]

Moscow has warned the US against taking unilateral action in Syria, as there is no threat from the Syrian military, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said. The statement comes after the US accused Syria of preparing for a chemical attack, without giving any evidence.   [...]

The member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs claims that Brussels needs to restore strong dialogue and cooperation with Moscow as the anti-Russia sanctions lost any economic reasoning and turned into a mere political instrument. [...]

Qatar has signed a deal to buy $12 billion-worth of McDonnell Douglas F-15QA Eagle air superiority fighters from the United States. Speaking to Radio Sputnik, Birol Baskan, an assistant professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, said that the deal clears Doha's reputation as a terror state. [...]

France has found no traces of Russian hackers in a cyberattack on President Emmanuel Macron's campaign, the head of the French National Agency of Information Systems Security (ANSSI) told AP. [...]

Poland is drifting away from the EU, which demands that Warsaw accept refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, former Polish member of the European Parliament, Joannа Senyszyn, told Sputnik. “The EU has repeatedly warned Poland over its refusal to take in refugees and [the changes to the country’s constitutional court, which Brussels believes pose a serious challenge to the rul [...]

Over the past weekend, the Israeli military carried out several attacks on positions of the Syrian Army at the Golan Heights. On Sunday, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) attacked Syrian Army positions and an ammunition truck "in response to several Syrian projectiles" launched from Syrian territory. [...]

Russia has slammed Washington’s threats against the Syrian government following a recent White House statement alleging that President Bashar Assad’s forces are preparing to use chemical weapons. “I am not aware of any information or threat of using chemical weapons,” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Tuesday. [...]

Berlin cannot rely on an "erratic" Donald Trump, and it remains unknown whether it can rely on the US as a whole, German chancellor candidate Martin Schulz has stated. Schulz, a Social Democrat (SPD) and the main challenger to Angela Merkel in the upcoming September election, made the comments at a party convention on Sunday. [...]

Russian Navy warships launched missiles from the Mediterranean Sea at Daesh targets in the eastern Syrian province of Hama, killing militants and destroying the group's command posts and large caches of weapons, the Russian Defense Ministry said Friday. [...]

A brief trip to Crimea in June 2017 made me understand: Crimea wants to be a part of the "bigger world," but only together with Russia. The theme of economic sanctions against Russia and especially against its region of Crimea is becoming a real bonanza for lawyers. [...]

Matteo Salivini, leader of Italian opposition Lega Nord party, told Sputnik on Friday that the extension of the European Union's anti-Russian sanctions was "absurd," since the restrictive measures were damaging for the economies of both Italy and the entire 28-member-bloc. [...]

Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma has lashed out against the EU, saying that the bloc's policies had brought Ukraine "to its knees," and turned it into a raw material colony. Speaking to Sputnik, Ukrainian political analyst Alexander Okhrimenko said that it was surprising that Kiev expected anything different from the Europeans. [...]