An Arab sheikh seems to think the 'world's poorest president,' Uruguay's Jose Mujica, is in dire need of cash. He's offered $1 million for Mujica's iconic 1987 VW Beetle - but the pot-smoking leader says he will donate the money to the homeless instead. “I didn’t give it any importance,” the humble ex-guerilla leader told a news conference, after the Uruguayan weekly Busqueda broke the st [...]

Six former US detainees, who have never been charged, are beginning their new life as refugees in Uruguay. They arrived on Sunday and have given their first comments to the press to say they are happy to be there. The six include four Syrians, a Palestinian and a Tunisian. Although they were cleared for release in 2009, the US was not able to discharge them until Uruguayan President Jose Mujica [...]

Pope Francis has promised that your favorite pooch will have a spot in heaven, along with all other animals. He made the vow while comforting a little boy mourning the loss of his dog, according to media reports. During his weekly address in the Vatican's St. Peter's Square, the pope told the boy that “paradise is open to all of God's creatures.” [...]

The Grand Canyon, one of the seven wonders of the natural world, became even more wondrous on Thursday, thanks to a rare weather event. A sea of clouds filled the chasm from the bottom up, ebbing and flowing like a seaside tide. The stunning sight of the canyon filling with fog like water fills a bathtub occurred due to a total temperature inversion. [...]

The so-called "torture report" released by the Senate this week contains only a fraction of the findings on how the CIA aimed to gather intelligence from detainees through interrogation. Still, it contains more than a few shocking revelations. According to the Senate committee’s findings released on Tuesday, the “enhanced interrogation techniques,” or EITs, used against foreign prisoners [...]

A German court has rejected a bid by opposition parties to bring ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden to Berlin to testify about the US agency's intelligence activities in Germany before a parliamentary committee. Members of Germany’s Green and left parties petitioned Berlin’s Federal Constitutional Court to grant Snowden temporary entry to Berlin in order to answer questions about the National [...]

Russia's Foreign Ministry has decried the US Senate-backed Ukrainian support bill as "anti-Russian" in a statement released on Friday evening. It says that Washington is seeking to "destroy cooperation" between the two nations. The bill, titled,“An act to support freedom in Ukraine in 2014”, would provide Kiev with weapons, millions of dollars in military assistance, and other forms of aid, [...]

A freight train carrying a whole column of American armored vehicles has been caught on camera in Latvia. Dalbe Railway Station, where the train was reportedly spotted several days ago, is less than 300km from the Russian border. The train was carrying at least 38 vehicles and several semitrailers, including eight Bradley Fighting Vehicles, nine M113 Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs), four petr [...]

So the EU “defeated” Putin by forcing him to cancel the South Stream pipeline. Thus ruled Western corporate media.  Nonsense. Facts on the ground spell otherwise. This “Pipelineistan” gambit will continue to send massive geopolitical shock waves all [...]

The economic burden of Western sanctions has pushed Russia to the east in search of business opportunities. Judging by the outcome of President Putin’s visit to India - 20 high-profile deals struck – Moscow’s ‘pivot to Asia’ is getting a warm welcome. Russian President Vladimir Putin achieved this during his visit to India spanning 23 hours and 15 minutes and at a summit meeting with [...]

The mainstream U.S. news media’s narrow parameters, especially on foreign policy issues, give the American people little opportunity to engage in meaningful debate or to influence outcomes. Typically, public perceptions are managed and consensus is manufactured, as Lawrence Davidson writes. Most Americans believe they have a range of choices in their daily lives and that they may choose among [...]

For the first time in two decades, through a spate of school shootings at the likes of Columbine, Colorado and Newtown, Connecticut, more Americans say it is more important to protect gun rights rather than to increase gun control, Pew Research found. Pew’s latest poll on American attitudes regarding gun rights found that 52 percent of respondents are more concerned about the protection of t [...]

Fifty-four countries were named in the Senate report into US terror activities around the world. Here are seven governments whose leaders will be having sleepless nights trying to come up with excuses to explain their actions. [...]

The lack of doctors and medicines in the eastern Ukrainian conflict zone is putting lives at risk says a new World Health Organization report, which describes the situation on the ground as "not just a humanitarian crisis." “No child has been vaccinated in the areas affected by conflict since September 2014, sending polio vaccine coverage down to less than 30-40 percent,” the WHO report rea [...]

When President Putin makes his lightning one-day visit to India, the main thing on his mind will be power. He'll be discussing nuclear cooperation and energy when he meets Prime Minister Modi. “Nuclear energy cooperation is one of the pillars of our strategic partnership. We concluded two inter-governmental agreements in this field in 2008 and in 2010,” Putin said in an interview with India [...]

Thousands of people in New York and other US cities protested for a third night against the use of lethal force by police against minorities, as prosecutors pledged to consider charges against an officer in the killing of an unarmed black man last month. The killing of 28-year-old Akai Gurley, who was gunned down in November by a police officer in a darkened public housing stairwell in Brooklyn [...]

Former congressman Ron Paul has lashed out at the resolution the House passed against Russia, branding it "one of the worst pieces of legislation ever." It could even pave the way for a potential war with Russia, as it was with Iraq, he warns. Resolution 758 strongly condemns the actions of Russia under Vladimir Putin, for what it describes as a policy of “aggression against neighboring count [...]

Russia is launching a new national defense facility, which is meant to monitor threats to national security in peacetime, but would take control of the entire country in case of war. The new top-security, fortified facility in Moscow includes several large war rooms, a brand new supercomputer in the heart of a state-of-the-art data processing center, underground facilities, secret transport rou [...]

The build-up of NATO forces in Eastern Europe is hostile and destabilizes the Baltic, once the safest region in Europe, a senior Russian diplomat charged. The alliance's chief accused Moscow of conducting aggressive exercises close to NATO borders. The trade of accusations between Russia and NATO continued on Monday ahead of a NATO ministerial meeting this week. [...]

Hundreds of people have gathered near the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood with St. Andrew's Cross flags, music and speeches in a celebration of Scottish nationhood, amid continued demands for independence as St. Andrew's Day celebrations got underway. Poetry recitals, speeches and songs were on the agenda, as people wrapped themselves in flags and “Yes”-related paraphernalia. Even the blue [...]

Muslim countries are able to solve their problems on their own, the Turkish president believes. He says far from offering help, the West is actually exploiting "conflicts in the Middle East" and only cares about the region's riches. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has urged Islamic countries to unite in order to solve “the biggest humanitarian and political crisis in their history,” according to AFP, [...]

Out with boring public information leaflets and in with flashy TV ads. The German Ministry of Environment has come up with a series of commercials on the problems of climate change, featuring sex and zombies in the message. The scene: A young girl arrives home late one night and is confronted with the awkward situation of finding her parents engaged in the act inside a brightly lit room. After [...]