The Europeans have let themselves to be drawn into an ‘insane march on Russia’ by concentrating the largest amount of military hardware on Russia’s borders since the Second World War, putting Europe at risk of a hot conflict. However, if there is one spark, Europe will be the first victim, according to Danish author Jens Jorgen Nielsen. [...]

The European Union has toughened its visa regime for Ukrainians as verification of applicants’ documents in consulates has become more rigorous and the number of refusals for multiple visa claims has rapidly increased, Kiev-based newspaper Vesti wrote. Even those in Ukraine willing to travel to the Euro-2016 in France are now seeing their visa applications turned down even though the EU earli [...]

Beijing looks to garner international favor through a massive investment effort in Europe and Asia. China is now nearly three years into Xi Jinping’s cooperative development strategy with European partners known as "One Belt, One Road," or the "New Silk Road." The plan is part of China's push to leverage their economic potential to maximize geopolitical influence. [...]

The Syrian Army launched on June 3 a large-scale offensive to liberate the city of Raqqa, the de-facto capital of the Daesh caliphate. Retired Syrian Major General Sabet Muhammad told the Russian newspaper Izvestia that the operation started from the town of Isriya, in Hama province, nearly 140 km to the west from Raqqa. [...]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has come out with her approval for the creation of a common economic zone between the European Union and Russia. The chancellor made the statement during a congress of the regional branch of the Christian Democratic Union in the federal state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, according to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. [...]

As the prospect of Donald Trump in the White House moves from ludicrous to terrifying, it’s time to reconsider the electability question. Despite polls suggesting that Hillary Clinton is more likely to lose the general election than Bernie Sanders, her supporters routinely argue that Sanders’ program is too radically utopian to have a chance. [...]

With Washington undertaking the greatest military expansion in world history, oblivious to the global ramifications of its sheer arrogance and audacity, the time is ripe for Russia to make a symbolic gesture in America’s backyard. At the time of this writing, three US B-52 Stratofortress Bombers have just departed from a US airbase in North Dakota, [...]

Chile’s main solar power plants are supplying so much electricity that they have to give it away for free or face prices going down. The glut has been driven by the country’s booming copper industry. Chile’s growing energy demand has prompted the development of 29 solar farms to supply the central grid. [...]

Switzerland may become the first country in the world to introduce a universal basic income after Sunday’s referendum. If passed, every adult legally residing in the country would receive a monthly income of around $2,500, whether they work or not. [...]

In the upcoming government security policy guidebook currently being prepared by the German Defense Ministry, Russia will be designated one of 10 major challenges on par with terrorists, migrants and global climate change, reported Die Welt. The so-called White Paper is to be released sometime after the British referendum on EU membership, [...]

Legal double standards are the norm in the U.S. – no jail for law-flouting Wall Street bankers but mass incarceration for average citizens, especially minorities, who get caught up in the prison-industrial-complex, as Michael Brenner describes. Illicit financial behavior has been decriminalized in the United States – for all practical purposes. [...]

Some Democratic leaders are privately scouting around for someone to replace Hillary Clinton if she stumbles again in California and/or the FBI detects a crime in her email scandal, reports Robert Parry. For months now, poll after poll have registered the judgment of the American people that they want neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump as the next President, but the two major parties seem [...]

As the U.S. government ratchets up a new Cold War, Poland is taking hostility toward Russia to the next level, inviting in U.S. military bases and arresting an anti-NATO politician on vague “espionage” charges, writes Gilbert Doctorow. Since Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice Party returned to power last fall, the new government has been cracking down on independent media, reshaping the [...]

America may lag behind the developed world in many categories, but it is No. 1 in the “merchant of death” business, experiencing a boom in the commerce of boom, especially in areas destabilized by U.S. invasions, notes JP Sottile. Who says nothing is made in the USA anymore? Certainly not the well-heeled denizens of the State Department’s diplomatic corps. And they should know. That’s b [...]

With rumors flying that establishment Democrats might hand Hillary Clinton her hat before the Democratic Convention to replace her with Joe Biden, John Kerry or some other grey-suited hand-job for empire and the Chamber of Commerce, the greatness that is the U.S. in 2016 keeps mounting. (Bernie [...]

On June 2, a few days before the California primary, Hillary Clinton gave up trying to compete with Bernie Sanders on domestic policy. Instead, she zeroed in on the soft target of Donald Trump’s most “bizarre rants” in order to present herself as experienced and reasonable. Evidently taking her Democratic Party nomination for granted, she is positioning herself as the perfect candidate for h [...]

Hillary Clinton made a strong case for why handing the nuclear codes over to a President Donald Trump would be a scary idea, but there may be equal or even greater reason to fear turning them over to her. In perhaps the most likely area where nuclear war could break out – along Russia’s borders – Clinton comes across as the more belligerent of the two. [...]

In what supporters described as "a victory for accountability for corporate crimes," a U.S. judge ruled in favor of allowing Colombians to sue former Chiquita Brand International executives for the company's funding of a paramilitary group that murdered plaintiffs' family members. [...]

Progressive groups welcomed President Barack Obama's call to expand Social Security by increasing taxes on the wealthy, praising the effort and crediting it in part to "relentless grassroots activism" and Bernie Sanders' political efforts. [...]

Democratic presidential contenders Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are locked in a dead heat in California among registered Democrats, two new polls show.Sanders even beats Clinton by one point when potential Democratic primary voters are surveyed. [...]

Put simply, a "good country" is one "that contributes to the greater good of humanity." Which country is doing the most to serve humankind? Sweden, according to the latest Good Country Index. The biennial index, which ranks 163 nations, [...]

'We need a foreign policy based on building coalitions... [not] perpetual warfare in the Middle East' Bernie Sanders responded to Hillary Clinton's foreign policy speech on Thursday with a hit at her credentials, including her involvement in the Iraq War and so-called "regime change" in Libya. [...]