The number of Americans seeking citizenship in New Zealand jumped by 70 percent in the three months following the election of President Donald Trump from the same time period last year, according to immigration records. Since Trump’s election, 170 Americans without a family connection to New Zealand have put in applications for a grant of citizenship to the island nation, versus 100 dur [...]

Where is the increasingly vituperative spat between Turkey and The Netherlands (and other EU countries) going to lead? Why is this political fall-out between fellow NATO members happening at this precise moment? First, a quick recap of the events.   [...]

Any third-rate politician who fails anywhere to explain away his failures now has a very convenient scapegoat, says George Szamuely, from the Global Policy Institute at London Metropolitan University. The UK has no evidence Moscow is trying to undermine the democratic process in Britain, according to the UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. [...]

The Congressional Budget Office has some bad news for Republicans pushing repeal of Obamacare. While health insurance premiums and the federal deficit are projected to drop by 2026, about 24 million Americans would also lose coverage in that time. [...]

Turkey will challenge the Netherlands in the European Court of Human Rights over its refusal to allow Turkish officials to enter the country and deliver campaign speeches, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned. In an interview with A Haber television following a cabinet meeting in Ankara on Monday evening, the Turkish leader also promised to deploy “whatever sanctions we have” and to � [...]

The number of civilian casualties from airstrikes by the US-led coalition in the Iraqi city of Mosul exceeds the numbers reported by the media during the operation to retake Aleppo by Syrian and Russian forces, the London-based Airwars monitoring group has said. [...]

The Democrats won’t admit that they lost to Donald Trump because they ran a deeply flawed, corporate-oriented candidate, so they blame Russia instead, a very dangerous diversion, says Nicolas J S Davies. The current debate over “fake news” has reminded me of a conversation I had several years ago with a former citizen of East Germany, now living in the United States. He explained that, [...]

People living in the United States have entered into one of the most dangerous periods of the 21st century. Donald Trump, the president, is not only a twisted caricature of every variation of economic, political, educational, and social fundamentalism, he is the apogee of an increasingly intolerant and authoritarian culture committed to destroying free speech, civil rights, women’s reproductive [...]

The rise of Donald Trump raises opportunities and perils regarding the prospects for societal transformation and change. On the one hand, reactionary forces have been emboldened, on issues from health care reform and deregulation to militarism and taxes. But times of crisis also provide opportunities to build toward progressive change over the mid-to-long-term. With that in mind, it’s worth refl [...]

On Monday, a Pentagon spokesman, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis announced that the US military has "carved out a new role in Syria" with small numbers of troops positioned not with an offensive or defensive role, but to "reassure and deter." Commenting on the announcement, Russian media suggested that it just "reflects the limits of the US capacity." [...]

A Democratic Texas State Representative filed a bill on Friday seeking to fine men $100 for masturbating, in a protest of current state abortion laws. Democratic Representative Jessica Farrar, the author of House Bill 4260, or the “Man’s Right To Know Act,” includes "proposed satirical regulations" on men masturbating, seeking a prescription for Viagra, and for vasectomies. [...]

In war-torn Syria, 2016 was the worst year on record for the upcoming generation, with at least 652 child deaths, UNICEF said on Sunday. The agency released a report two days prior to the sixth anniversary of a popular uprising in Damascus that escalated into an armed rebellion and resulted in a full-blown civil war, now in its sixth year. [...]

Referring to ongoing peace talks on Syria co-sponsored by Russia, President Vladimir Putin said the negotiations marked the beginning of “rebuilding” this war-torn country, as well as other conflict zones in the Middle East region. Already several rounds of talks have been held in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana between the Syrian government and opponents, under the auspices of Russia an [...]

On Monday, US President Donald Trump gave the CIA the green light to conduct drone strikes against suspected militants, according to the Wall Street Journal. This new authority is a shift from a policy under former President Barack Obama that limited the CIA’s ability to engage in paramilitary activity, and may very well strain relations between the agency and the Pentagon.   [...]

The Republican plan to overhaul the US healthcare system is “far worse” than Obamacare, according to Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders, and represents a disgraceful effort to “give massive tax breaks” to the wealthy. Last week, the Republican Party released new healthcare legislation aimed at dismantling the “skyrocketing costs” of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), signed into law by B [...]

About 150 thousand people returned to Russia from foreign countries in 2016, the interior ministry said. State support for repatriates and the anti-Russia campaign in Western countries were the top reasons given. According to the report, quoted by Izvestia daily, the total number of people who returned to Russia from foreign nations in 2016 was 146,585. Most of them returned from former Soviet [...]

Washington has boosted its military presence in Syria to ostensibly help local forces fight against Daesh, but former US diplomat and Senate adviser James Jatras told Radio Sputnik that the Pentagon's latest deployment could see the United States get bogged down in Syria. "Frankly, I don't like it. I don't think it's a good idea. As much as anybody else I would like to see Daesh and other te [...]

On Thursday, Germany's populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party presented its pre-election program in Berlin. The main political agenda of the party remains the same: a sharp restriction of immigration and a more resolute expulsion of illegal migrants. The draft of the pre-election program during a joint press conference in Berlin was presented by three party representatives: Albrecht G [...]

Over the past few years millions of people have been forced to leave Syria, a country still gripped by war. Thousands of Russian-speaking women were living in Syria with their husbands and hundreds of them stayed behind when the conflict erupted. Sputnik correspondent Mikhail Alaeddin met with one such family residing in Damascus. The sunny and cozy apartment in Damascus where a woman named Ev [...]

When the global military empire takes money from programs that poor people depend on and gives it to rich military contractors - it is a theft and looting of the national budget, says Brian Becker, the National Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition. [...]

I sometimes wonder what Путин must make of the Western media obsession with him. Do his ears burn each day with all the new articles, broadcasts, social media mentions – the myriad voices, guided by the Western political and media establishments, speculating, characterizing, creating – “Putin”? [...]

The world's first man in space Yuri Gagarin was born 83 years ago, on March 9, 1934. Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first man in outer space when the Vostok-1 spacecraft with the Soviet cosmonaut on board was launched from the Baikonur space center on April 12, 1961, at 6:07 AM local time, marking a new era in human history.  Yuri Gagarin's Birthday First woman in space Valentina [...]