With Al-Qaeda’s last major foothold in Syria now under threat, the US has suddenly become deeply concerned about civilians that could be caught in the crossfire – even as the US military loosens its own rules of engagement. [...]

A US military high-altitude Global Hawk drone has reportedly been spotted flying an hours-long spy mission over eastern Ukraine and off the shore of Crimea along with another American surveillance plane. [...]

In an unprecedented traverse of Russia’s Northern Sea Route, a heavy 3,600-container ship is taking advantage of rising summer temperatures and melting ice in the polar regions of the Arctic Ocean to cut two weeks off its delivery time from South Korea to St. Petersburg, Russia. [...]

Russia, Turkey and Iran need to team up in the face of the pressure exerted on them by Washington, Iranian analysts told Sputnik, commenting on the September trilateral meeting in Tehran. According to them, Moscow, Tehran and Ankara could work out a joint strategy to resist the US sanctions policy. [...]

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Iranian Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati has discussed a possible replacement of the US dollar by national currencies in trade transactions with Turkish and Russian representatives at the recent trilateral summit of the Syrian ceasefire guarantor states, local media reported. [...]

The book says the Trump administration was seriously concerned about the possibility of Hezbollah dragging the US into a “catastrophic” Middle East war. The recently-published book entitled "Fear: Trump in the White House" says that in February 2017, early in the Trump administration, top US officials were seriously worried that Israel could not defend itself against a possible attack from Hez [...]

The Northern Sea Route, which lies in Arctic waters and within Russia’s Exclusive Economic Zone, should be a transport corridor open to the entire world community, Admiral Paul Zukunft, Commandant of the US Coast Guard, said. Zukunft told journalists that the US Armed Forces still do not intend to conduct operations in the Arctic to uphold the principle of freedom of navigation, as is done in th [...]

An Austrian court has sided with Russia’s state-backed vodka maker in the battle over the Stolichnaya and Moskovskaya brands, ordering the Dutch-based Spirits International B.V to pay compensation for using them illegally. Stolichnaya vodka has long been one of the world’s most recognizable brands associated with Russia. [...]

Russia’s leading airline Aeroflot has entered the list of the world’s most popular carriers, according to a survey conducted by airline booking platform, eDreams, based on 60,000 passenger reviews. Aeroflot was ranked eighth, surpassing Air France and TAP Portugal. [...]

Seventeen years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US government and media outlets have decided that Al-Qaeda is now a rebel group worthy of our sympathy. The cynical narrative change is par for the course, experts told RT. As somber newspaper headlines mark the anniversary of the devastating attacks, some commentators have pointed out that the terrorist group accused of murdering 3,000 America [...]

Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), voiced on Tuesday his intention to bring Israel to the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the backdrop of the United States' recent decision to close the PLO office in Washington over its concerns of the organization's course of action. [...]

France has commented on Washington's threats, voiced by National Security Advisor John Bolton on Monday, to sanction the ICC if it goes ahead with plans to investigate suspected war crimes in Afghanistan carried out by members of the US armed forces and the CIA. [...]

The Netherlands will end its support for Syrian militants, since the program did not yield the “expected” results. Earlier, journalists found one of the groups had been labeled ‘terrorist’ by the Dutch justice department. “The opportunity to quickly change the situation [in Syria] is extremely small,” reads the letter the lower house of the parliament by Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blo [...]

On the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Dr. Tomasz Pierscionek recalls another tragedy associated with the date. On the 17th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, we mourn the deaths of almost 3,000 people. The events that followed the attacks have come to overshadow the tragedy itself, and the shockwaves emitted almost two decades ago are still resonating across the [...]

Some 300,000 troops and tens of thousands vehicles, aircraft and warships are participating in the largest military exercise Russia has staged in 37 years. Units from China are to take part in the maneuvers as well. The Vostok 2018 exercise is meant to test the capability of the Russian military to rapidly move and deploy large forces over long distances as well as coordinating between several bra [...]

Footage, meant to serve as proof that the Syrian government has conducted a chemical weapons attack in Idlib, Syria, is to be handed to global news outlets by the end of Tuesday, the Russian military claims. Several Middle East TV channels and a US news channel have been sent to Jisr al-Shughur in Syria’s Idlib Governorate to produce the footage needed for the provocation, a statement by the Rus [...]

The US Army is to further bolster the number of troops it has stationed in Europe by a further 1,500, despite repeated complaints by President Trump that NATO allies are not spending enough to defend the continent. US Army Europe said the troops will be deployed to Germany by September 2020, calling it a “display of our continued commitment to NATO and our collective resolve to support European [...]

A new party calling for Ireland to leave the EU launches in Dublin today with a conference discussing the possible benefits of ‘Irexit.’ The Irexit Freedom Party is pushing its agenda despite an apparent lack of public support. The Irexit movement was born out of a public meeting held in Dublin last February by former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, which was attended by 600 people. [...]

New Delhi is maintaining an independent foreign policy course with regard to Latin American countries, Indian political analysts told Sputnik. They stressed that Donald Trump's pressure on Cuba and Venezuela would unlikely affect India's ties with these countries and explained how New Delhi avoids a clash of interests with China in the region. [...]

While the US is openly wooing India, there are no signs that New Delhi is going to give up its longstanding defense collaboration with Russia. Speaking to Sputnik, Indian analysts emphasized the country's "strategic autonomy" as New Delhi's major priority and presumed that the US's apparent plan to bring India into NATO’s fold would fail. [...]

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif accused US President Donald Trump of flipping the script on destruction across the Middle East by blaming Iran instead of looking at US policies that have delivered “horrors” in the region. [...]

Last week the US warned of military strikes on Syria "if" government forces use chemical weapons (CW). This week, Trump comes clean by dropping any mention of a CW pretext – simply warning Syria not to attack terrorists. Trump tweeted his warning to Syria, as well as its allied Russian and Iranian forces, to not launch a military offensive to retake control of the northwest province of Idlib. [...]