Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said that he had discussed with a Russian delegation, led by Deputy Finance Minister Sergey Storchak, the ways to strengthen Venezuela's economic independence. [...]

Mexico's president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador perceives the cooperation with Russia as one of his foreign policy priorities, Russian Ambassador to Mexico Viktor Koronelli said. [...]

Almost 60 percent of adult refugees who arrived in Germany in the first half of 2018 did not have any identity documents, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported, citing the German Interior Ministry. [...]

Salah and Abdullah Khashoggi, the sons of the recently murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, called on the Saudi authorities in an interview for the CNN broadcaster to return them their father's body. [...]

New sanctions placed on Iran by US President Donald Trump are likely to have the reverse effect the White House is hoping for, according to new reports, as Tehran’s petroleum exports are set to increase just as Washington’s restrictions commence. [...]

Russia’s money transfer system, developed as an alternative to SWIFT is now more popular than the global network, said Anatoly Aksakov, head of the Russian parliamentary committee on financial markets. [...]

Europe should reach out to Russia and abandon “counterproductive” economic sanctions – or risk seeing it drifting further towards China, former president of France Nicolas Sarkozy has warned, in a candid interview. [...]

US threatens to smack SWIFT if it allows transactions in violation of Iran sanctions. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has warned global financial messaging service SWIFT on Friday that it could be penalized if it doesn’t cut off financial services to entities and individuals doing business with Iran. [...]

The landslide success of Emmanuel Macron’s party seems to be fading away as the party of his presidential rival, Marine Le Pen, is overtaking his ruling alliance six months ahead of European parliamentary elections, a poll shows. [...]

The US, Canada and EU states have suffered economic setbacks as a result of imposing anti-Russian sanctions, but a recent report suggests that certain countries have been affected more than others. [...]

The US serviceman killed in an insider attack in Kabul is identified as Brent Taylor, a mayor from Utah. While shocking to some back at home, this is only the latest such incident in a war that even top brass now call unwinnable. [...]

The departing German chancellor leaves her country with a fractured domestic political scene and myriad intractable social challenges, the EU as weak as it has ever been, and grave international crises no closer to resolution. [...]

Austria has announced that it would back out of a UN pact on international cooperation on migration, arguing that the document is inadequate for managing global migration flows and could undermine Austria's sovereignty. [...]

European countries have vowed to maintain “effective financial channels” and to keep trading with Tehran after the US announced that the EU is not among those spared from its sweeping sanctions against Iran. [...]

ST PETERSBURG (Sputnik) - The Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) supports the government’s decision not to sign the UN global migration pact dealing with the rights of refugees and migrants and expects other countries to follow, Roman Haider, the FPO’s foreign policy spokesman, told Sputnik. [...]

Earlier, Hungary introduced psychological tests for migrants demanding asylum on the basis of persecution for having non-standard sexual orientations. Such tests were later ruled out by the European Court of Justice. [...]

The US is slapping far-reaching sanctions on Venezuela in its bid to re-assert hemispheric dominance over what National Security Advisor Bolton dubbed a “Troika of tyranny” in a groan-worthy throwback to Bush’s “axis of evil.” [...]

Cuba's new president Miguel Diaz-Canel is starting his official three-day visit to Russia on November 1. Moscow and Havana have been re-establishing trade ties, a tradition going back to Soviet times. [...]

The US Missile Defense Agency has been practicing shooting down a land-based medium-range ballistic missile, just as Washington prepares for its withdrawal from the cornerstone INF nuclear non-proliferation agreement. [...]

The Afghanistan war cannot be won militarily and peace will only be achieved through a political resolution with the Taliban, the newly-appointed American general in charge of US and NATO operations has conceded. [...]

Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro tweeted that he intends to transfer the Brazilian Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as a part of fulfilling his election campaign promises. Brazil will become the third country after the United States and Guatemala to move its embassy to Jerusalem, Associated Press reported. In a tweet published on Thursday, Bolsonaro said: “Israel is a sovereign state, [...]

Washington has been putting external pressure on EU states over the Russian-European Nord Stream 2 project and repeatedly threatened to impose sanctions on the involved entities. The US cites security and energy independence reasons, while promoting more expensive US LNG. [...]