Countries

Whoops! Looks Like US Consumers Might Pay For The Wall
The Trump White House has absolutely no idea how to compose a revenue stream for their precious wall. The only way is for the American Taxpayer to fork it over. How many times in the course of the 2016 campaign did Donald Trump promise he would build a beautiful wall on the border with Mexico and make Mexico pay for it? [...]
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What Trump’s ‘Great Wall’ Misses
President Trump’s “Great Wall” ignores a key reason why desperate Mexicans and Central Americans flee north – the history of U.S. military and economic intervention that has created poverty and repression, notes William Blum. Instead of building a “Great Wall” on the Mexican border, President Trump might find it so much cheaper, so much easier, so much more humane, so much more popu [...]
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Austria ready to send troops to other European countries to keep migrants out
The government in Vienna is working on amendments to Austrian laws that would allow troops to be sent to other European countries to help them "protect their borders" from illegal migrants and refugees, the Austrian defense minister has said. [...]
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‘Confrontational agenda’: Russian envoy blasts NATO border activities
Moscow’s envoy to NATO has said the bloc’s recent moves and future plans aimed at boosting its military presence near Russian borders have no justification and have only served to heighten tensions. “In essence, by its preparations along our borders NATO tries to impose on us a confrontational agenda that has nothing to do with real needs in the security sphere,” Aleksandr Grushko said [...]
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China to become #1 economy by 2050, US to fall behind India, Russia to top Europe – PwC
Over the next three decades, the global economy will be dominated by China, and the US economy will lose steam and fall behind India, says consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Russia will become the leading European economy ahead of Germany, UK, and Italy with GDP of $7 trillion, according to a PwC report. [...]
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Kremlin to check if Fox News host who called Putin ‘killer’ apologizes by 2023
The remarks of Fox News host Bill O’Reilly who called Vladimir Putin “a killer” have put the news channel in an awkward situation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that Russia is very patient and can wait till 2023 for an apology. [...]
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Russian Tu-22M3 Bombers Demoralize and Strike Fear Into Daesh in Deir ez-Zor
The Syrian troops in Daesh-besieged Deir ez-Zor have significantly improved their positions thanks to Russian airstrikes, the Russian General Staff said. Russian Aerospace Forces' Tu-22M3 aircraft have carried out 36 sorties, during which they destroyed 34 terrorist facilities near the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor, Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi, chief of the Russian General Staff Main Operational [...]
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‘Gov’t Can’t Bury Its Head in Sand Forever’: UK in Court Over Saudi Arms Sales
Britain's sale of arms to Saudi Arabia is facing its greatest legal challenge to date, with the UK High Court hearing a judicial review against the exports as campaigners accuse London of being complicit in civilian deaths inflicted as part of Riyadh's military campaign in Yemen. [...]
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Putin Signs Law on Ratifying Deal With Ankara on Turkish Stream Gas Pipeline
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law on the ratification of the agreement with Ankara on the Turkish Stream gas pipeline. The lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, ratified the agreement on January 20, while the upper house, the Federation Council, ratified the document on February 1. [...]
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Warsaw to Kiev: ‘You Won’t Get Into Europe Glorifying War Criminal Bandera’
Former Polish President Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the influential leader of the country's ruling Law and Justice Party, has some frank advice for Kiev, telling Ukrainian officials that the country would never join Europe if it continued to try to build its national identity on the glorification of notorious Nazi-allied war criminals like Stepan Bandera. [...]
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Spy Agency BND Finds No Evidence of Moscow Meddling in German Politics
German intelligence was unable to produce any conclusive evidence of Russia waging a disinformation campaign against Berlin, and not for lack of trying. Having spent nearly one year on a joint investigation, the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) have failed to produce any conclusive evidence of Russia perpetrating [...]
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Moscow dismisses reports of Russian airstrikes on Idlib
Russian jets have not carried out any airstrikes on the Syrian city of Idlib, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman has said, accusing the Western media of spreading false stories. “The warplanes of the Russian Aerospace Forces have not conducted a single airstrike against the city of Idlib yesterday, or last week, or even since the beginning of 2017,” the ministry’s spokesman, Major Gener [...]
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Cooperation With Russia, Damascus is ‘Turkey’s Only Chance to Avoid War’
In a recent article for the Turkish newspaper Aydınlık, Ismail Hakki Pekin, former chief of the Turkish General Staff Intelligence Department, warned that Turkey is moving step by step to war. In an interview with Sputnik Turkiey, Pekin commented on his assumption, saying that Ankara has found itself in a difficult situation, particularly due to foreign pressure. [...]
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Russian investigators launch probe into civilian deaths from fresh Ukrainian shelling
Russia’s top federal investigative agency has begun a criminal case into the deaths of civilians in Donetsk that were reportedly the result of shelling by Ukrainian government forces on February 1-3. According to Investigative Committee acting chief spokesman Svetlana Petrenko, a criminal case has been launched into the use of illegal methods of warfare. [...]
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Empire Files: US-Russia Relations in “Most Dangerous Moment”
Leading scholar on US-Russia relations addresses the claim being trumpeted by politicians and media on both sides of the political spectrum that Russia is now the "number one" threat to the United States. Given the proxy wars in Syria and Ukraine, Dr. Cohen tells host Abby Martin that the real alarming danger today is "a new, multi-front Cuban missile crisis." Dr. Stephen Cohen is Professor Eme [...]
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Steering Trump Back to Endless War
President Trump’s chaotic first two weeks have seen senior aides reverse his most promising plans for restoring realism to U.S. foreign policy, especially regarding Russia and the Mideast, reports Daniel Lazare. Well, that didn’t take long, did it? The Trump administration hadn’t even reached its two-week mark when it surrendered a major portion of its independence and fell in behind the [...]
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Der Spiegel editor-in-chief defends ‘beheading’ cover, says Germany should ‘stand up against’ Trump
The editor-in-chief of German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel has defended a highly controversial cover depicting US President Donald Trump beheading the Statue of Liberty. He also called on Germany “to build an alliance” against the US leader. [...]
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Russian, US Analysts Urge Trump Not to Make an Iraq-Like Mistake with Iran
On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration was looking to 'drive a wedge' between Russia and Iran in its effort to improve relations with Moscow while confronting Tehran. Multiple observers, from Russian foreign policy analysts to American paleo-conservatives, warn that a US-Iran clash would be a catastrophic mistake. [...]
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Rocket Force: China Tests Its New Super-Accurate Missile During War Games
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force has begun practicing the deployment of medium-range Dongfeng (DF) missiles capable of reaching strategic US and Japanese bases near China, the latest iteration of Beijing’s war game-preparations for an armed conflict in the South and East China Seas. [...]
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With ‘Echo of Trump,’ French Far-Right Leader Le Pen Launches Presidential Bid
Riding on the coattails of far-right victories in the U.S. and U.K., France's Marine Le Pen officially launched her bid for president on Sunday with a speech and manifesto full of populist talking points and anti-immigrant fervor."The impossible has suddenly become possible...Other countries have shown us the way," the head of the Front National (NF) party declared in Lyon, pointing to the surpris [...]
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Russia disagrees with Trump labeling Iran ‘number one terrorist state’
Russia disagrees with a remark recently made by US President Donald Trump’s that branded Iran as “the number one terrorist state,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, citing partnership between Moscow and Tehran. “We do not agree with the definition,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday. [...]
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The Double Standard on Yemen’s Suffering
The Trump administration condemns Iran as somehow responsible for a Yemeni rebel group’s attack on a Saudi warship, but ignores the Saudi-inflicted bloodbath on the Yemeni people, as Gareth Porter explained to The long-running U.S.-backed Saudi war against a Yemeni rebel group has led to mass hunger and civilian slaughter — suffering comparable to the humanitarian crisis of Aleppo in Syria [...]
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