Case risks further straining ties with Washington in wake of last year's revelations of NSA's monitoring of Angela Merkel's phone. The German government has demanded an explanation from Washington over the US intelligence services' apparent contact with a German man arrested last week on suspicion of being a double agent, the interior minister said in a newspaper interview. [...]

Kiev's artillery attacked the city of Lugansk in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, witnesses and militia of the self-proclaimed People's Republic of Lugansk (LNR) said. Ukrainian forces also attacked the city's suburbs from the air. [...]

The arrest of a German intelligence employee for allegedly spying for the US has caused an uproar among German politicians. The country’s foreign minister has demanded an immediate clarification of the situation from Washington. "If the reports are true, then we're not talking about trifles," Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on a visit to Mongolia, DPA reports. [...]

The US has condemned the beating and detention of a 15-year-old Palestinian-American by Israeli police after a massive social media campaign exploded in cyber space decrying the actions and hypocrisy of Israeli authorities. [...]

The euro crisis may have eased recently, but companies and countries in the common currency zone still aren't investing enough to fuel growth. The best solution, a Berlin economics institute argues, is to establish an EU-wide investment fund. Among economists, Marcel Fratzscher is considered to be particularly creative. [...]

Shanghai is considered to be the frontrunner between Russia, China, India and South Africa to become home to the new BRICS bank, media reports. The bank is an attempt by emerging economies to challenge the US-based global lending institutions. Four of the BRICS countries – China, Russia, India and South Africa [...]

A leaked memorandum from the RAND corporation think tank suggests the Ukrainian govt should engage in an all-out war in eastern regions, including shutting down all communications, putting citizens in internment camps and kill all who resist such actions. [...]

A man employed by Germany's foreign intelligence agency (BND) has been arrested on suspicion of spying for the US. The espionage swoop is the latest of a series of embarrassing intelligence scandals straining ties between the two countries. A 31-year-old German man was been arrested Wednesday on suspicion of being a foreign spy, according to a statement released by the German Federal Prosecutors O [...]

Ukraine is the land where time has stood still and the consequences of what has been sown are now being reaped as anarchy is unleashed upon its rotting corpse. Just over a year ago, in rather more peaceful times, I was on a train from Kharkov to Simferopol, sharing a cabin with two Russian gents from the Far Eastern outpost of Nakhodka and, breaking the monotony of long distance rail commutation, [...]

Vladimir Putin has acknowledged that Russia-US relations are currently not at their best in a congratulatory Fourth of July note to Barack Obama. The Russian president said he was sure, however, that the two countries "must cooperate." The Independence Day greetings from Russia come at a time when relations between the two countries are at their lowest in years, mostly over differences in approach [...]

The governor of the central Ukrainian city of Khmelnytskyi is attacked by an angry crowd of local residents, Footage of the attack shows Leonid Prus hit repeatedly over the head by a woman and lifted up by the unhappy crowd. Prus later attempts to escape out of a window but is again confronted by the crowd outside [...]

Russia has stepped up the battle against the moral corruption signified by the likes of Austrian Eurovision winner Conchita Wurst by announcing that crime busting Crimean prosecutor general Natalia Poklonskaya is to take over judging as part of the new Russian alternative to Eurovision. [...]

Ukraine's newly appointed defense minister was so fast to sign his oath of allegiance that even the capped pen in his hand failed to slow him down. The candidacy of Lieutenant-General Valery Geletey, which was proposed by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, received support from the majority of the MPs in the country’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, on Thursday. [...]

The NSA has been revealed to mark and consider potential "extremists" all users of the internet anonymizer service Tor. Among those are hundreds of thousands of privacy concerned people like journalists, lawyers and rights activists. [...]

Former NSA agents-turned-whistleblowers are testifying before a German parliamentary committee as the Bundestag investigates America's wiretapping methods with one of them branding the NSA approach "totalitarian." It is hoped that evidence from the two US citizens, William Binney and Thomas Drake, will shed light on the methods of surveillance used by the American National Security Agency (NSA) [...]

Americans avoiding US taxes and stashing cash abroad are in trouble from July 1, when a new law forces institutions hiding money to report on their clients. The law will make business with Americans harder, but the US hopes it will raise billions. The US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA, comes into force on July 1 and requires foreign banks to hand over data on clients to the US Intern [...]

Russia's president has blamed the turmoil in Ukraine on the country's newly-elected leader Petro Poroshenko. Vladimir Putin also criticized the West for its intention to turn the planet into a "global barracks." Russia’s president has laid the blame for the ongoing turmoil between Kiev and south-eastern regions squarely at the feet of Petro Poroshenko, after the Ukrainian leader terminated the c [...]

Parliament moves to quit Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; Nazis 'regular reconnaissance visits to nuclear power stations'; Billionaire governor, whose Privatbank is top recipient of new IMF bailout, being placed on international wanted list for 'banned methods of warfare and aggravated murder'. Seek truth from facts with intelligence expert William Engdahl; economist Professor Michael Hudson; for [...]

Russia will start settling more contracts in Asian currencies, especially the yuan, in order to lessen its dependence on the dollar market, and because of Western-led sanctions that could freeze funds at any moment. [...]

When an anti-austerity march starting from the steps of the BBC fails to make the news, something is rotten in the UK. Speaking with RT, Russell Brand believes that's to be expected, as people would surely rise up if they saw just how exploited they are. [...]

The first delivery of Russian Sukhoi fighter jets arrived in Iraq on Saturday, the country's Defense Ministry said. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is hoping the jets will make a key difference in the fight against ISIS. The Iraqi Ministry of Defense on Sunday confirmed receiving five Su-25 fighter jets in accordance with the deal with Moscow. [...]

A Verkhovna Rada deputy who is also an ex-defense minister of Ukraine, said during a prime time talk-show that the country' "patriots" would be justified"to kill" Russian President Vladimir Putin if he came to Kiev. [...]