Leaders of Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia have signed a treaty that will make Erevan a new member of the Eurasian Economic Union, a free trade zone made up of former Soviet states to rival the European Union. The deal was signed Friday at the summit of the Eurasian Economic Union in Minsk. [...]

The Russian Lower House is calling on international organizations and national parliaments and governments to investigate crimes against civilians in south-east Ukraine, and to step up efforts to find a peaceful settlement in the region. The motion was passed by 428 votes in favor with only one abstention. [...]

Activists will rally in Westminster on Saturday as part of a Europe-wide protest against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which critics say will eradicate public services including the NHS and the BBC. More than 1,000 people are expected to march against the treaty in London over the weekend, with many more holding demonstrations in UK cities and throughout Europe. [...]

With his second and final term in office nearly half-way done, United States President Barack Obama, who enjoyed record popularity after first being elected in 2008, is struggling to keep up with the ratings of wildly unpopular predecessor George W. Bush. Fallout isn’t unexpected during so-called “lame duck” sessions in which reelection is ruled out and campaigning for office is no longer [...]

Students at the Complutense University of Madrid kicked out several radical Ukrainians who stormed into a lecture, trying to provoke a fight. Posters reading, 'Ukraine besieged by fascism will not happen,' appeared in campus halls after the incident. The university faculty of political sciences and sociology is currently hosting an exhibition titled, "Humanitarian crisis in southeastern Ukraine [...]

As President Petro Poroshenko signed the lustration law, the trash dumping of lawmakers in Ukraine is gaining momentum. The General Prosecutor warned that there is a thin line between the so-called "trash lustration" and lynching. Poroshenko signed the law that establishes the legal framework for checking government officials linked to the rule of ousted President Yanukovich. [...]

Airplane cabin cleaning crews at New York's LaGuardia International Airport began a 24-hour strike on Wednesday, citing, in part, possible exposure to the Ebola virus. Meanwhile, a poll found most Americans want flights banned from Ebola-ravaged areas. Around 200 Air Serv employees who work on domestic flights to LaGuardia began their strike on Wednesday evening. [...]

Ukrainian Security Service seeks to reach the crash site of the Malaysian MH17 flight to fabricate at least some evidence which will allow Kiev to conceal the true causes of the catastrophe from the world, said Russia's Defense ministry. “One cannot but feel angry about yet another attempt by the Ukrainian security service chief to use absolutely groundless allegations in a bid to persuade th [...]

Video has surfaced appearing to show a New York City police officer taking $1,300 from a man who says he was robbed and then pepper-sprayed by the cop during a stop-and-frisk last month that ended without arrest. The New York Daily News published exclusive video of the September 16 incident on Wednesday this week and reported that the Brooklyn district attorney’s office is now investigation a [...]

Winter is around the corner, and Kiev will not have enough time to fill its underground storage facilities with the 18-20 billion cubic meters of gas needed to survive the winter, and ensure EU supplies, warns Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller. Every year before winter, Ukraine stores up gas in its underground storage facilities in preparation to distribute it to homes and buildings when the cold weat [...]

The FBI counter-terrorism division is calling on to Americans to report on fellow citizens engaged in suspicious activities to help identify possible terrorists, in the first place those connected to terrorist activities overseas. In a statement published by the FBI on Tuesday, assistant director of the counter-terrorism division Michael Steinbach said the Bureau needs “the public's assistanc [...]

Former CIA Director Leon Panetta says that he was cursed at by President Barack Obama's former chief of staff after he agreed to cooperate with the Senate's investigation into his agency's torture tactics in the wake of 9/11. In passages taken from his new book and published online bythe Intercept, Panetta explains the event that triggered the outburst, which flowed from the former chief of sta [...]

The worlds' biggest hotel operator Hilton Worldwide has sold the iconic Waldorf Astoria in New York to a Chinese insurance company for nearly $2 billion, a record for a US hotel. The deal marks the continued Chinese real estate shopping spree in America. Hilton Worldwide Holdings sold the historic landmark to Beijing-based Anbang Insurance Group for a record breaking $1.95 billion, which is the [...]

Kiev doesn't have full control of its military and paramilitary forces, who continue to violate the principles of international humanitarian law, highlights the latest UN report on the human rights situation in Ukraine. The UN has stated that at least 3,660 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine since April – including 330 since the ceasefire brokered on Sept. 5. [...]

As the mainstream Western press keeps lamenting Belarus's rising influence, very few commentators dare to explain why "the last dictatorship in Europe" became the only possible venue for peace talks between the warring Ukrainian parties. The explanation is not quite flattering for the countries of the EU: it turned out that they all were biased in their attitude to the conflict in Ukraine, all [...]

German industry is feeling the most pressure since the peak of the global financial crisis in 2009, putting Berlin in a difficult position as it preaches tough austerity to its neighbors. Russian sanctions are only exacerbating the economic misery. Industry orders tumbled 5.7 percent in August from July, the fastest since January 2009 when they dropped 7.7 percent, the Germany Economy Ministry [...]

Serbia's foreign minister Ivica Dacic has proposed a limited free trade zone with Russia and has assured Moscow the South Stream gas pipeline project is safe. Russian companies meanwhile expressed readiness to invest up to $1bn in Serbia's infrastructure. Under the plans put forward by the Serbian official, who is in Moscow until Wednesday for a session of the Intergovernmental committee on tra [...]

Twitter has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, so it can release more information about national security requests. The company wants to publish its full transparency report. It alleges that its First Amendment rights to free speech are being violated by rules that prevent it from disclosing the quantity of national security requests it receives. Twitter can publish the number of nati [...]

Udo Ulfkotte, a former editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of the largest newspapers in Germany, admits he worked for the CIA. “I’ve been a journalist for about 25 years, and I’ve been educated to lie, to betray, and not to tell the truth to the public,” Ulfkotte told Russia Today. “I was supported by the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA. Why? Because I am pro-American.� [...]

As the Pentagon reports spending of over $1 billion on bombing ISIS in Iraq and Syria, ex-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says the fight against the Islamist movement may take as long as 30 years. Since mid-June, when militants from the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, or ISIL) launched their lightning offensive in Iraq, the Pentagon has spent $1.1 billion on fighting the militia, US Central C [...]

Health officials in Madrid say three more people are in the hospital on suspicion of contracting Ebola. The news comes a day after a nurse who treated two Ebola patients at a city hospital became infected with the disease. One has tested negative. The nurse is now being treated with a drip using antibodies from those previously infected with the virus, Reuters reports. [...]

An analysis of cartridges used by Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria shows that their newest ammunition is of American origin. China and the Soviet Union were identified as the biggest sources of munitions, but with bullets made 25 years ago. The Conflict Armament Research (CAR) group analyzed the origin of some 1,700 small-caliber cartridges collected from areas in Syria and Iran where [...]