No side wins from the sanctions introduced by the European Union against Russia, it is necessary to find a way that would lead to the removal of most of them, Austrian President Heinz Fischer said Wednesday. Fischer arrived on an official two-day visit to Moscow on Tuesday at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invitation. [...]

President Barack Obama is facing increased pressure due to a renewed effort to make a secret Congressional report public that may describe links between Saudi Arabia and the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. Over the past week, families of 9/11 victims have criticized President Obama because [...]

Syrian moderate opposition has failed to withdraw from areas controlled by Al-Nusra Front terrorists, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, blaming the US for failing to exert influence on the opposition and questioned its claims of being moderate. Washington has itself earlier raised the issue of moderate opposition forces, who are part of the ceasefire agreement in Syria, being present [...]

Chief of the General Staff of the Austrian Armed Forces, Lt. Gen. Othmar Commenda said that Russia for Austria is much closer than other great powers. The Austrian Armed Forces are ready to develop cooperation with Russia, despite recommendations of other world powers, the Chief of the General Staff of the Austrian Armed Forces, Lt. Gen. Othmar Commenda said Wednesday. [...]

The official UN answer to the Golan Heights issue is outlined in Security Council resolutions that make clear that the area is illegally annexed, UN's Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said Monday. Earlier in the day, head of the Syrian government delegation at the Geneva talks Bashar Jaafari strongly criticized Israel for holding an unprecedented cabinet meeting in the Golan Heights. [...]

The Saudi Arabian government has threatened to sell of hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets should Congress pass a bi-partisan bill led by US Senator Chuck Schumer that could hold the kingdom responsible for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, The New York Times reported Friday. [...]

Russian President Putin appeared on top of his game as he fielded questions from across Russia in his annual Q&A event which focused on concerns about the economy, as Gilbert Doctorow describes. Anyone watching Russian state television in the past weeks would have been keenly aware that Thursday was D-day, the day of the annual marathon Q&A session of President Vladimir Putin with the n [...]

Saudi Arabia appears to be blackmailing the US, saying it would sell off American assets worth a 12-digit figure sum in dollars if Congress passes a bill allowing the Saudi government to be held responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The warning was delivered by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir last month during a visit to Washington [...]

It took two warmongering politicians to unleash the “shit storm” that the U.S. created in Libya: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Yet, Clinton, the number two player in the aggression, takes all the weight, while Obama acts as if he was nowhere near the scene of the war crime. Obama takes no responsibility for the terror he has loosed on Africa. “Boko Haram’s strength and ability to te [...]

A protest calling on David Cameron to resign has brought more than 150,000 people onto the streets of London on Saturday afternoon.The March for Health, Homes, Jobs and Education was organized by activist group the People's Assembly Against Austerity. The demonstrators called for an end to austerity, and demanded that David Cameron quit over the Panama Papers revelation that he profited from his f [...]

Appearing at the XXIV Assembly of the Foreign and Defense Policy Council on April 9, 2016, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov openly said the country was adopting a polycentric paradigm for its foreign policy: “…one can observe the general trends, and we are trying to reflect them in our basic doctrinal documents, including the National Security Strategy, the Foreign Policy Concept w [...]

The Austrian government is about to enforce a tougher asylum law. According to it, the government will be entitled to declare a state of emergency. If this happens, no refugee would be able to apply for asylum in Austria any longer. The opposition and other critics speak of a “de facto abolition of the right to asylum”. [...]

To answer the dilemma whether “Panama papers” are part of the informational war, we need to look at the list of directly or indirectly mentioned persons. Who is and who is not mentioned in the papers? And who was financially assisted this operation? Because, “Consortium of Investigative Journalism” does not work for free? Or it just works for the ideals of the world freed of tax havens and [...]

It is hardly surprising that Europeans are growing angry with their leaders who blindly follow Washington; it seems that neither Brussels, nor Washington is bothered by the fact that it is the citizens of the EU member states who pay the price for the US’s political adventurism, Ron Paul writes. Anger is rising in the EU, and with reason, former US Republican congressman Dr. Ron Paul notes in [...]

At the Vatican on Friday, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders railed against everything from environmental destruction and the weakening of the rights of workers to widespread financial criminality on Wall Street and unregulated globalization.   [...]

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has accused the West of breaking promises made after the fall of the Iron Curtain, saying that NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe violated commitments made during the negotiations over German reunification. Newly discovered documents from Western archives [...]

Despite Western media dominance, the U.S. government wants to stop the world from hearing the “other side” on foreign disputes by “countering” or discrediting those voices, explains Jonathan Marshall.  By Jonathan Marshall  “[Russia] is conducting an intensive propaganda campaign [...]

The Obama administration protects its “credibility” by refusing to budge on its claims about the 2013 Syria-sarin case or the 2014 plane shoot-down in eastern Ukraine even as the evidence shifts, writes Robert Parry. What surprised me most about the Iraq War wasn’t how wrong the expectation of happy Iraqis showering American troops with flowers was or even how badly the war would turn out [...]

Washington has jumped at the opportunity to provide massive amounts of weapons to Syria's so-called moderate rebels amid the ongoing ceasefire; it seems that the White House is not bothered by the fact that half of its arms have found their way into the hands of al-Qaeda, Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams note. [...]

A minor incident in the Baltic Sea has the Pentagon up in arms over what they’re calling a "simulated attack" by Russian jets. While sailing through the Baltic on Tuesday, the USS Donald Cook reported that Russian aircraft performed repeated flybys within 30 feet of the destroyer. [...]

The German government has granted a Turkish request to allow the possible prosecution of a TV comedian who wrote a crude poem about Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Chancellor Angela Merkel said. Ankara has demanded to have comedian Jan Boehmermann prosecuted for insulting a foreign head of state. [...]

Germany's prison system keeps convicts comfortable, costs less and has lower recidivism rates, but would Americans ever accept it? In Germany, prison isn't meant to punish, it's designed to mirror normal life as much as possible. Among the privileges enjoyed by German     G M T Detect language Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani B [...]