The National Endowment for Democracy, a soft-power group mostly known for splashing government dollars on pro-US influence campaigns overseas to enforce regime change, has endorsed protests against police brutality at home. In a statement on Friday, the NED came out in support of the protests against the police killing of unarmed black man George Floyd, which, while originally peaceful, spiralled [...]

While some in the German establishment fumed over the US presumably keeping Berlin uninformed about plans to withdraw thousands of troops, others envisioned it as a chance to loosen ties with their turbulent NATO ally. Washington didn’t bother to inform Berlin of its intent to redeploy thousands of troops from Germany to other locations, with the news coming out of the blue for the governme [...]

Facebook's decision to "warn" users about state-controlled media is an outdated propaganda trick, say international observers, asking whether US news outlets are independent and from whom. Facebook has announced that it will start labeling Russia Today, Sputnik, Iran's Press TV, China's Xinhua News and other government-funded news outlets as "state media" and will block any ads from them [...]

The murder of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police has forced the American people to take a long, hard look at their country and what it stands for. The rest of the world is looking too. It is not a pretty picture. The image of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, prompting a plaintive cry for help (“I can’t breathe”) before dyi [...]

The Australian embassy in Washington, DC will investigate an apparent assault by the US police against two Aussie journalists. The pair were roughed up live on air while covering a protest outside the White House. A crew working for the outlet 7News was targeted on Tuesday while reporting from a demonstration in the US capital against police brutality. Correspondent Amelia Brace and cameraman Tim [...]

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned the US’ European allies against using Huawei tech, insisting privacy-loving Germans shouldn’t stand for such (alleged) spying. Never mind that time the NSA wiretapped Merkel. Pompeo pleaded with European governments on Fox News on Sunday that “the right thing to do for their people” was to kick Huawei’s cheaper and arguably more advanced techn [...]

Over the past three years, authorities in Syria have seized enough terrorist weapons, ammunition, communications equipment and medical supplies to field a small army. Many of the arms were covertly delivered to the country from abroad, and paid for by powers seeking the illegal armed overthrow of Syria’s government. Local authorities found another major stock of arms and ammunition, inc [...]

The world's fourth-largest processor company may potentially strike fresh deals with a leading Chinese smartphone company as a trusted supplier amid the ongoing US trade war on China, it was revealed in reports this week. Huawei subsidiary smartphone maker Honor confirmed it would seek to acquire MediaTek 5G processors for upcoming mobile product lines, reports revealed on Thursday. [...]

American LNG exports are estimated to have dropped by around a half since January due to a collapse in demand which led to lack of storage space in overseas facilities. Buyers of US-extracted liquefied natural gas (LNG) may cancel up to 60 percent of July orders, as the energy industry is reeling from a global glut caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Bloomberg reports, citing a survey of [...]

The staggering increase in wealth inequality comes despite, or perhaps in part because of, several rounds of cash injections by the federal government to corporations, big banks and to a lesser extent, ordinary Americans which have added trillions of dollars to the US national debt. The wealthiest 600+ Americans saw their total wealth increase by $434 billion between March 18, when the go [...]

The longest river in Europe, the Volga begins in the Valdai Hills northwest of Moscow, Russia and carries its waters south until it drains into the Caspian Sea, covering a distance of 3,530 kilometres. The Volga River is widely regarded as the national river of Russia as it flows past cities like Tver, Dubna, Yaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod, and Kazan, as well as Tolyatti, Samara, and Volgograd, [...]

The head of Wuhan’s virology institute has debunked the evolving US ‘Wuhan virus’ theory, saying Covid-19 couldn’t have artificially leaked. She said her lab didn’t have the first virus samples until as late as the end of 2019. Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) director Wang Yanyi described the theory – that Covid-19 was a creature of her laboratory – as “pure fabrication.” She e [...]

With the US economy reeling from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee agreed to give Israel a minimum of $3.8 billion in military aid per year. A full vote on the gift is expected soon. The US unemployment rate now stands at 14.7 percent, the worst figure since records began. Nearly 39 million Americans have lost their jobs since the coronavirus reached U [...]

Scientists in Russia have carried out the first unofficial trial of a Covid-19 vaccine – and they say it’s effective. Epidemiologists in Moscow took the unorthodox step of injecting themselves and examining their own results. The test, conducted by employees at the National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, reportedly saw the participants gaining immunity to the virus with no [...]

By announcing its intent to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty, the Trump administration continues its war on legacy arms control agreements, endangering international security. The Trump administration has formally announced its intention to withdraw from the 2002 Open Skies Treaty (OST), a critical multilateral agreement involving 35 states which allows specially equipped reconnaissance aircraf [...]

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo proclaimed that "enormous evidence" shows the COVID-19 outbreak began in a laboratory in Wuhan, raising doubts immediately with his claim as it breaks with a common recognition of global scientists. The World Health Organisation said there were some 15,000 full genome sequences of the novel coronavirus available, and "from all of the evidence that... this virus is [...]

The US has repeatedly blamed China for failing to contain the spread of the virus from Wuhan and for reporting the disease to the World Health Organisation too late. US President Donald Trump took to Twitter to reiterate his position concerning China's role in the coronavirus outbreak. Earlier this week, Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations Zhang Jun said that the US should stop using scapegoa [...]

Shortly after asking “why the coronavirus did not kill more Russians,” Bloomberg illustrated a stinging op-ed with a graph suggesting Russia is far behind OECD states in hospital beds... though the exact opposite is true. Everything’s fine if it fits the narrative, Bloomberg Opinion editors might have thought when they misquoted World Bank statistics on the number of hospital beds per 1,000 [...]

Detained US ex-soldiers said they were tasked with securing an airfield in Venezuela in order to put President Nicolas Maduro on a plane after toppling him. The men were charged with plotting a coup against the government. Venezuelan state TV has aired new interrogation tapes of the two former US Green Berets charged with participating in failed plot to oust Maduro. [...]

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido has accepted the resignation of two of his aides who are currently wanted by Caracas on charges of a botched armed incursion into the country to topple President Nicolas Maduro, Spain's EFE news agency reported on Monday, citing Guaido's office. It comes after Venezuelan Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez unveiled last week a 41-page contract [...]

Earlier this week, the US Navy's Pacific Fleet announced that all of its submarines in the area were at sea to conduct operations in support of "a free and open" region "amidst the pandemic caused by the coronavirus". The Times has quoted unnamed US defence sources as saying that the Pentagon may lose a sea war with China if one breaks out in the Indo-Pacific region amid the increasing tensions be [...]

US-backed Maduro opponent Juan Guaido met with the head of the notorious Silvercorp, the American company believed to have been involved in the failed attempt to kill the Venezuelan president, a captured plotter has alleged. Jordan Goudreau of Silvercorp had met with Guaido, the self-proclaimed interim leader of Venezuela, in Washington DC in March. [...]