A Florida Senator spectacularly claimed he’s got intelligence proving China is obstructing the West’s search for a Covid-19 cure – He shouldn’t be shy to let the world see the “evidence,” Beijing’s diplomats swiftly quipped. Rick Scott, who sits on the Senate’s Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees, pulled no punches when talking China on the BBC on Sunday. Apart from bei [...]

While some in the German establishment fumed over the US presumably keeping Berlin uninformed about plans to withdraw thousands of troops, others envisioned it as a chance to loosen ties with their turbulent NATO ally. Washington didn’t bother to inform Berlin of its intent to redeploy thousands of troops from Germany to other locations, with the news coming out of the blue for the governme [...]

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned the US’ European allies against using Huawei tech, insisting privacy-loving Germans shouldn’t stand for such (alleged) spying. Never mind that time the NSA wiretapped Merkel. Pompeo pleaded with European governments on Fox News on Sunday that “the right thing to do for their people” was to kick Huawei’s cheaper and arguably more advanced techn [...]

Over the past three years, authorities in Syria have seized enough terrorist weapons, ammunition, communications equipment and medical supplies to field a small army. Many of the arms were covertly delivered to the country from abroad, and paid for by powers seeking the illegal armed overthrow of Syria’s government. Local authorities found another major stock of arms and ammunition, inc [...]

The world's fourth-largest processor company may potentially strike fresh deals with a leading Chinese smartphone company as a trusted supplier amid the ongoing US trade war on China, it was revealed in reports this week. Huawei subsidiary smartphone maker Honor confirmed it would seek to acquire MediaTek 5G processors for upcoming mobile product lines, reports revealed on Thursday. [...]

The longest river in Europe, the Volga begins in the Valdai Hills northwest of Moscow, Russia and carries its waters south until it drains into the Caspian Sea, covering a distance of 3,530 kilometres. The Volga River is widely regarded as the national river of Russia as it flows past cities like Tver, Dubna, Yaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod, and Kazan, as well as Tolyatti, Samara, and Volgograd, [...]

The head of Wuhan’s virology institute has debunked the evolving US ‘Wuhan virus’ theory, saying Covid-19 couldn’t have artificially leaked. She said her lab didn’t have the first virus samples until as late as the end of 2019. Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) director Wang Yanyi described the theory – that Covid-19 was a creature of her laboratory – as “pure fabrication.” She e [...]

With the US economy reeling from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee agreed to give Israel a minimum of $3.8 billion in military aid per year. A full vote on the gift is expected soon. The US unemployment rate now stands at 14.7 percent, the worst figure since records began. Nearly 39 million Americans have lost their jobs since the coronavirus reached U [...]

Scientists in Russia have carried out the first unofficial trial of a Covid-19 vaccine – and they say it’s effective. Epidemiologists in Moscow took the unorthodox step of injecting themselves and examining their own results. The test, conducted by employees at the National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, reportedly saw the participants gaining immunity to the virus with no [...]

The US has repeatedly blamed China for failing to contain the spread of the virus from Wuhan and for reporting the disease to the World Health Organisation too late. US President Donald Trump took to Twitter to reiterate his position concerning China's role in the coronavirus outbreak. Earlier this week, Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations Zhang Jun said that the US should stop using scapegoa [...]

Detained US ex-soldiers said they were tasked with securing an airfield in Venezuela in order to put President Nicolas Maduro on a plane after toppling him. The men were charged with plotting a coup against the government. Venezuelan state TV has aired new interrogation tapes of the two former US Green Berets charged with participating in failed plot to oust Maduro. [...]

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido has accepted the resignation of two of his aides who are currently wanted by Caracas on charges of a botched armed incursion into the country to topple President Nicolas Maduro, Spain's EFE news agency reported on Monday, citing Guaido's office. It comes after Venezuelan Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez unveiled last week a 41-page contract [...]

Earlier this week, the US Navy's Pacific Fleet announced that all of its submarines in the area were at sea to conduct operations in support of "a free and open" region "amidst the pandemic caused by the coronavirus". The Times has quoted unnamed US defence sources as saying that the Pentagon may lose a sea war with China if one breaks out in the Indo-Pacific region amid the increasing tensions be [...]

US-backed Maduro opponent Juan Guaido met with the head of the notorious Silvercorp, the American company believed to have been involved in the failed attempt to kill the Venezuelan president, a captured plotter has alleged. Jordan Goudreau of Silvercorp had met with Guaido, the self-proclaimed interim leader of Venezuela, in Washington DC in March. [...]

NASA has inked a deal with Russia’s space agency Roscosmos to allow a US astronaut to travel into space aboard a Soyuz rocket in the fall, even as SpaceX gears up for its first manned launch later this month. “A contract was signed today on providing a seat for a US astronaut onboard a Soyuz MS manned spaceship to be launched to the ISS in the autumn of 2020,” Roscosmos told Tass on Tuesday. [...]

The United States has the highest number of coronavirus cases globally, the only country reporting seven-digit numbers of infections. Brazil is also one of the 10 most infected nations according to the WHO. Its President Jair Bolsonaro has repeatedly dismissed the virus as just a "flu". The United States and Brazil failed to take warnings issued by the World Health Organisation seriousl [...]

The fallout continues from ‘Operation Gideon’, the brazen May 3-4 attempt by a US security contractor to invade Venezuela, kidnap its president and take him back to the United States. The White House remains in damage control mode, denying any responsibility for the plot while seeking to bring the captured US mercenaries involved back home. Diosdado Cabello, president of Venezuela’s [...]

China has faced numerous accusations over its handling of the initial COVID-19 outbreak from US officials, including President Donald Trump who claims that the virus escaped from a Chinese laboratory and that Beijing was hiding the true information about the state of the outbreak in its early stages. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has vehemently denied a report by the German magazine Der Spie [...]

VIENNA -Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz on Friday delivered a speech timed with the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in which he recalled the responsibility of his own country for the events of 1939-1945. "The horrors of National Socialism were so indescribable that we should make sure to draw our lessons from that time. This is especially true for Austria, because not o [...]

Bill Gates told CNN's Fareed Zakaria on Sunday that China did a lot of things right at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak and now is not time to discuss their mistakes. Gates called it a "distraction" to blame them and focus on the "incorrect and unfair things" said about them. ZAKARIA: You've been making this case for international cooperation very powerfully and in my mind persuasively [...]

Austrians will soon be able to walk with no restrictions and gather in groups of 10, as coronavirus measures will be gradually lifted starting next month. The easing of the self-isolation measures was announced by Health Minister Rudolf Anschober, who said that the spread of the novel coronavirus remains quite slow and the forecast for the upcoming month looks “very good.” He also said that th [...]

Media outlets have omitted aspects about the US assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani that don’t fit Washington’s narrative, comedian Lee Camp has argued. He’s debunked the Pentagon spin so you don’t have to. The host of Redacted Tonight has listed six things about the highly controversial killing that the media has either ignored completely or under-reported, including the n [...]