Vladimir Putin faced a barrage of tricky questions from French media ahead of his meeting with world leaders at the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings. Here are his best replies on key issues: Ukraine, Crimea and relations with the US. [...]

Two Eastern European nations, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, have refused to host foreign troops and military bases. The prime ministers of both countries have consecutively spoken against the proposal voiced by US President Barack Obama. [...]

The European Central Bank lowered its deposit rate to -0.10% as the continent battles deflation after many failed monetary policy attempts. The European Central Bank cut its main refinancing rate to 0.15 percent from 0.25 percent, and the deposit rate from zero to -.10 percent, the first time the ECB has seen a negative rate and the first time a major central bank has crossed the zero threshold. [...]

President Obama has announced a plan to invest $1 billion in stepping up its military presence in Eastern Europe amid the Ukrainian crisis. The White House will send more troops and equipment to the region to "€œreaffirm"€ its commitment to NATO allies. [...]

Mercer has released their updated Quality of Living Survey for 2013. The survey analyzes 39 factors like political stability, cost of living, crime levels, pollution, and healthcare, which are important for future expats moving to the country. Europe dominated the top five list with just one city being from North America. [...]

Over one million people in Spain - the eurozone's fourth largest economy - haven't had a job since 2010, according to a report by Spain's National Statistics Institute. Although this number continues to rise, the government says it's witnessing recovery. [...]

Surfing on a wave of euro skepticism following the EU elections, UK Prime Minister David Cameron has called Brussels too big and bossy. The 28-nation bloc voted a record number of EU Parliament seats to anti-integration parties in the recent elections. [...]

There are many lessons to be learnt from the European election results. But whether Europe's spectacularly out-of-touch political and media elite do learn from them is a different thing altogether. The success of the anti-bail-out, anti-austerity party Syriza, who topped the poll in Greece, was one of the most eye-catching results of the election. [...]

While this year'€™s Int Economic Forum in St Petersburg saw fewer foreign guests due to sanctions tension, those who chose to leave politics aside told RT imposing economic restrictions on Moscow would mean "€œcutting the trees"€ they are "€œsitting on." [...]

In the run-up to the European election, we ought to be more skeptical of the EU. The union's fundamental design flaws could lead to its disintegration. An essay by former German President Roman Herzog. The European Union is in a deep crisis. The reasons for the crisis are manifold, and would, each on its own, have been endurable, even over decades. In the present situation, however, they have beco [...]

There is an air of unreality to Prince Charles'€™ spin-squad attempting this week to prove that the future British Head of State'€™s comparison of Putin to Hitler, while surrounded by journalists on a royal tour was said in a "€˜private conversation."™ [...]

Among the many targets for the UN National Security Agency'€™s electronic surveillance is the Vienna-based headquarters of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Austrian media reported. The OSCE is mentioned among the targets for NSA in the National Intelligence Priorities Framework (NIPF), a confidential document outlining intelligence gathering priorities, reported on [...]

They were big words, spoken almost as if they had been written in stone. "Our commitment to collective defence is rock solid, now and for the future," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said more than a week ago, first in the Polish capital Warsaw and then, on the same day, in the Estonian capital Tallinn. [...]

The fifteenth anniversary of NATO'€™s bombing of Yugoslavia, a barbaric and illegal act that mocked international law, provides an opportunity to consider the ultimate purpose of the US-led military machine. NATO’s attack on Yugoslavia, which saw US-built cruise missiles pound the Balkan nation into submission after 78 consecutive days of bomb strikes (March 24, 1999 to June 10, 1999), taught [...]

US and EU diplomats have said they will help Ukraine cut back on Russian gas, and also promised to help diversify the Russian-dominated European energy market, a difficult long term task for energy-dependent EU countries. US Secretary of State John Kerry, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and other energy advisers met in Brussels on Wednesday for an energy summit. [...]

New research from the Global Sustainability Institute has found that Britain, France and many other European countries have low reserves of fossil fuels, and their home grown energy could be entirely reliant on imports in several years. The study found that the UK has just 5.2 years of oil, 4.5 years of coal and three years of gas before it completely runs out of fossil fuels, said the researchers [...]

At least 20 people were killed, tens of thousands evacuated, over 250,000 households left without power in what has been branded the 'worst flooding' on record across the Balkans. Officials in Bosnia say 12 people have died and more bodies could emerge as the water recedes from dozens of cities flooded in the past three days. Serbia has seen eight deaths, AP reported. [...]

The French government has said that it will go ahead with 1.2 billion euro ($1.6 billion) contract to supply Russia with two Mistral helicopter carriers because cancelling the deal would harm Paris more than Moscow. In the wake of the crisis in Ukraine, the United States had been pressing France as well as Britain and Germany to take a tougher line against Russia and cancel the Mistral contract. [...]

Hungary has taken a bold stand against biotech giant Monsanto and genetic modification by destroying 1000 acres of maize found to have been grown with genetically modified seeds, according to Hungary deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar. Unlike many European Union countries, Hungary is a nation where genetically modified (GM) seeds are banned. In a similar stanc [...]

The IMF has approved a $17 billion loan to Ukraine. The first $3.2 billion tranche has arrived on Wednesday. It’s essential to identify the conditions attached to this Mafia-style “loan.” Nothing remotely similar to reviving the Ukrainian economy is in play. The scheme is inextricably linked to the IMF’s notorious, one-size-fits-all “structural adjustment” policy, known to hundreds of [...]

Events in Ukraine have become worrisome, because there is some kind of truth blockade occurring, and the information people are receiving is all warped somehow, and nobody knows who is telling the truth and who is not. Men and women around the Earth can’t tell what is propaganda and what is reality anymore because powerful people are manipulating what’s being reported over the air – nobody i [...]

Kiev'€™s military offensive into the east and south of Ukraine has all but ensured the failure of the Geneva agreement, setting the stage for a Russian response as NATO deploys troops to the region. As the bloody military crackdown continues in predominately Russian-speaking areas of the country, the deteriorating situation in Ukraine has given rise to appalling inter-ethnic violence. [...]