More than 1,000 world leaders, celebrities, and other societal figures have signed a letter calling for an end to the "disastrous" drug war ahead of an upcoming United Nations summit to discuss the organization's nearly two-decade-long campaign against narcotics." Humankind cannot afford a 21st century drug policy as ineffective and counterproductive as the last century's," reads the letter, or [...]

Pope Francis met with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders in the Vatican on Saturday morning and the two discussed the need for morality in the world economy.Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs said that the meeting took place in Domus Santa Marta, the pope’s residence, where Sanders had [...]

A protest calling on David Cameron to resign has brought more than 150,000 people onto the streets of London on Saturday afternoon.The March for Health, Homes, Jobs and Education was organized by activist group the People's Assembly Against Austerity. The demonstrators called for an end to austerity, and demanded that David Cameron quit over the Panama Papers revelation that he profited from his f [...]

On the surface, the new California Field Poll really wasn’t bad for Hillary Clinton. Yes, her one-time 63 point lead had shrunken to six, but it was still a lead, and at this point the Clinton campaign reckons that it won enough delegates in the South on Super Tuesday to hold on even if Sanders were to continue his winning streak – so long as their campaign manages not to implode. [...]

Appearing at the XXIV Assembly of the Foreign and Defense Policy Council on April 9, 2016, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov openly said the country was adopting a polycentric paradigm for its foreign policy: “…one can observe the general trends, and we are trying to reflect them in our basic doctrinal documents, including the National Security Strategy, the Foreign Policy Concept w [...]

The Austrian government is about to enforce a tougher asylum law. According to it, the government will be entitled to declare a state of emergency. If this happens, no refugee would be able to apply for asylum in Austria any longer. The opposition and other critics speak of a “de facto abolition of the right to asylum”. [...]

To answer the dilemma whether “Panama papers” are part of the informational war, we need to look at the list of directly or indirectly mentioned persons. Who is and who is not mentioned in the papers? And who was financially assisted this operation? Because, “Consortium of Investigative Journalism” does not work for free? Or it just works for the ideals of the world freed of tax havens and [...]

It is hardly surprising that Europeans are growing angry with their leaders who blindly follow Washington; it seems that neither Brussels, nor Washington is bothered by the fact that it is the citizens of the EU member states who pay the price for the US’s political adventurism, Ron Paul writes. Anger is rising in the EU, and with reason, former US Republican congressman Dr. Ron Paul notes in [...]

At the Vatican on Friday, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders railed against everything from environmental destruction and the weakening of the rights of workers to widespread financial criminality on Wall Street and unregulated globalization.   [...]

The reason you and I will never see the transcripts of Hillary Clinton’s speeches to Wall Street fat-cats — and the reason she’s established a nonsensical condition for their release, that being an agreement by members of another party, involved in a separate primary, to do the same — is that if she were ever to release those transcripts, it could end her candidacy for president.Please don [...]

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has accused the West of breaking promises made after the fall of the Iron Curtain, saying that NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe violated commitments made during the negotiations over German reunification. Newly discovered documents from Western archives [...]

Despite Western media dominance, the U.S. government wants to stop the world from hearing the “other side” on foreign disputes by “countering” or discrediting those voices, explains Jonathan Marshall.  By Jonathan Marshall  “[Russia] is conducting an intensive propaganda campaign [...]

The Catholic Church, which over the centuries has blessed many dreadful wars, is shifting to an anti-war position favored by Pope Francis and more in line with Jesus’s teachings, writes ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller. Pope Francis is on a roll. He has already roiled the waters of Western thinking on economics and society by touching on the dangers of Western capitalism drifting into sociall [...]

The Obama administration protects its “credibility” by refusing to budge on its claims about the 2013 Syria-sarin case or the 2014 plane shoot-down in eastern Ukraine even as the evidence shifts, writes Robert Parry. What surprised me most about the Iraq War wasn’t how wrong the expectation of happy Iraqis showering American troops with flowers was or even how badly the war would turn out [...]

Everybody knows what the pro-Hillary line this electoral season is; it is the same old story, modified to meet the challenge of the Sanders campaign. It comes down to this: because she is more “moderate” than Bernie, she is more electable; and because she is a levelheaded “progressive” who knows how to get things done – unlike Bernie [...]

The US Central Intelligence Agency has become increasingly focused on monitoring social media, according to a document obtained by The Intercept; the intelligence agency is pouring money in start-ups mining tweets, Instagram photos and Facebook posts. Every time you post a message on Facebook or share a photo on Instagram, remember this: Big Brother is watching you. [...]

Washington has jumped at the opportunity to provide massive amounts of weapons to Syria's so-called moderate rebels amid the ongoing ceasefire; it seems that the White House is not bothered by the fact that half of its arms have found their way into the hands of al-Qaeda, Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams note. [...]

A minor incident in the Baltic Sea has the Pentagon up in arms over what they’re calling a "simulated attack" by Russian jets. While sailing through the Baltic on Tuesday, the USS Donald Cook reported that Russian aircraft performed repeated flybys within 30 feet of the destroyer. [...]

The German government has granted a Turkish request to allow the possible prosecution of a TV comedian who wrote a crude poem about Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Chancellor Angela Merkel said. Ankara has demanded to have comedian Jan Boehmermann prosecuted for insulting a foreign head of state. [...]

Germany's prison system keeps convicts comfortable, costs less and has lower recidivism rates, but would Americans ever accept it? In Germany, prison isn't meant to punish, it's designed to mirror normal life as much as possible. Among the privileges enjoyed by German     G M T Detect language Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani B [...]

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has announced that he had resigned, local media reported Sunday. "I decided to resign from the post of Ukraine's prime minister. On Tuesday, April 12, the decision will be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian parliament]", Yatsenyuk said as quoted [...]

The Obama administration plans to prevent Russia from selling its Sukhoi Su-30 multirole fighters to Iran by vetoing the approval for the possible deal at the UN Security Council, but the US president could well cross his latest self-imposed "red line" like he's done in the past, Washington Times columnist L. Todd Wood asserted. "I doubt that the Kremlin will be stopped in their desire to ear [...]