Official Washington says it welcomes freedom of thought, but there is a startling absence of diverse opinions especially on key foreign-policy topics, such as Russia’s President Putin. In those cases, shallow “group think” prevails and belligerent “information warfare” rules, as Gilbert Doctorow observes. [...]

For years, a sense of disillusionment has been growing on the right. Now, the refugee crisis has magnified that frustration. Increasingly, people from the very center of society are identifying with the movement -- even as political debate coarsens and violence increases. By SPIEGEL Staff [...]

The Western narrative has sought to portray Russia as an aggressive regional actor. But Moscow's showcasing of its new military capabilities in Syria suggests that it can project its power at great distances cost-effectively to play a major role in international security. Has this marked a turning point in Russia's relations with the West? Oksana is joined by Mark Galeotti, Professor of Global [...]

In an outcome celebrated as a rejection of austerity not only in Spain but across the European continent, the Spanish general election Sunday resulted in a splintered parliament, with the conservative People's Party losing significant ground to the anti-austerity Podemos party. [...]

US President Barack Obama came to power with a promise that his primary objective will be achieving peace in the Middle East. Now as his seventh year in office is coming to an end he declares that peace is remote. Of course, what he couldn't achieve during seven years, is impossible to expect in the next year – the last year of his presidency. [...]

When Iceland jailed its bankers something changed. The unthinkable had happened: the real criminals had been held to account. Now Switzerland is also threatening to go off the fiat-bankster reservation. But will it happen? Josiah Stamp once said: “If you want to continue to be slaves of the banks and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credi [...]

A new report by the Pulitzer-winning veteran journalist Seymour Hersh says the Joint Chiefs of Staff has indirectly supported Bashar al-Assad in an effort to help him defeat jihadist groups. Hersh reports the Joint Chiefs sent intelligence via Russia, Germany and Israel on the understanding it would be transmitted to help Assad push back Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State. Hersh also claims the [...]

Washington will not share intelligence data on Islamic State positions in Syria and will not accept Moscow’s offer to cooperate on rooting out terrorism until Moscow changes its position on Syrian President Bashar Assad’s future, the Pentagon said. [...]

Syria has endured another year of devastating civil war and strife. However, thousands of civilians in Damascus have been trying to live as normal a life as possible, celebrating Christmas and giving them some respite from the chaos. [...]

Germany’s Initiative Group wants to provide up to ‎€2 billion to finance the Moscow-Kazan high-speed railway, according to the Vice President of Russian Railways (RZD) Aleksandr Misharin. "We have a proposal from our German colleagues on signing a similar [Russia-China – Ed.] memorandum on cooperation, where they make commitments on financing of up to €2 billion in the project on vari [...]

Since 2003, Moscow has watched with infinite patience as US-led forces have steadily steamrolled a path of chaos and carnage across a large swath of Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. This year Vladimir Putin drew a line at Syria. In an age when diplomats regularly correspond with each other behind the cold cover of firewalls and Twitter accounts, Moscow’s method of informing its [...]

In a message to the Libyan people, the US President said the 2011 Libyan revolution liberated them from “42 years of dictatorship.” Now there are “profound challenges,” which the Libyan people “have demonstrated the commitment to resolve.” [...]

Russian intelligence has spotted up to 12,000 tankers and trucks on the Turkish-Iraqi border, the General Staff of Russia’s armed forces has reported. “The [aerial] imagery was made in the vicinity of Zakho (a city in Iraqi Kurdistan), there were 11,775 tankers and trucks on both sides of the Turkish-Iraqi border,” Lieutenant-General Sergey Rudskoy told journalists on Friday. [...]

Turkish officers on the Syrian border have communicated with Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, Turkey's Cumhuriyet daily reported, citing an investigation by the Ankara Chief Prosecutor's office which allegedly eavesdropped on their phone calls. [...]

In his seminal 'Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization,' Bryan Ward-Perkins writes, "Romans before the fall were as certain as we are today that their world would continue forever... They were wrong. We would be wise not to repeat their complacency.” [...]

Activists who think that Ukraine’s 2016 budget screams death to the agricultural sector have brought a dead pig in a coffin to the Verkhovna Rada building in Kiev and held a mock funeral ceremony. The angry protesting farmers and their supporters demand to keep a simplified tax system and special VAT rules for the agricultural sector in 2016, something the announced budget lacks as Ukraine ha [...]

The US has ordered 20 additional RD-180 rocket engines from Russia, days after US Congress lifted the ban on the use of Russian engines to get American ships into space. However, the move has been lambasted by some politicians in Washington. [...]

Legal prostitution can lead to unusual laws. Driving instructors in the Netherlands may now legally accept sex as payment for their lessons. “Ride for Ride,” is the name of a newly introduced Dutch law allowing any student over 18 years old learning to drive a car, motorcycle, truck, or bus to offer his or her body in exchange for the accredited lessons, Metro reported Saturday. [...]

Kiev's attempts to avoid paying back its $3 billion debt to Moscow could end in the country defaulting on its foreign debt. Why didn't Kiev's Western benefactors side with Kiev in the IMF decision on the debt? Sputnik takes a look. On Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund board recognized Kiev's outstanding $3 billion debt to Moscow as sovereign, a status Kiev had fiercely contested. [...]

Nobody needs to read Zbigniew “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski’s 1997 opus to know US foreign policy revolves around one single overarching theme: prevent – by all means necessary – the emergence of a power, or powers, capable of constraining Washington’s unilateral swagger, not only in Eurasia but across the world. The Pentagon carries the same message embedded in newspeak: the Full S [...]

The Most Hypocritical Statement of 2015 awards have lots of strong contenders - but Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has made a dramatic late grasp for glory. He has condemned an attack on Idlib in north-west Syria believed to have been carried out by Russian planes, saying Syrian lands will not be part of "Russian imperialist goals." [...]

The Pentagon deliberately subverted American policy toward Syria, sabotaging US efforts to aid Syrian rebels and even sending US intelligence to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to journalist Seymour Hersh. In a nearly 7,000-word piece in the London Review of Books, Hersh says that the Joint Chiefs of Staff, America's top military leaders, decided to deliberately subvert American for [...]