Moscow and Ankara are not responsible for starting the conflict which has ravaged Libya, but they may have a decisive role in ending it, as they lead international diplomatic efforts at the Berlin peace conference. The two countries opposed the US-led NATO intervention to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi nine years ago but, despite Turkey being a NATO member and Russia being on the UN Security Council, n [...]

BEIRUT (Sputnik) - Clashes between Lebanese anti-government protesters and law enforcement resumed near the parliament building in the capital Beirut on Saturday, with police resorting to tear gas and water cannons, a Sputnik correspondent reported from the scene. [...]

Bending under the pressure from the Trump administration, major EU states have taken yet another step away from the Iran nuclear deal, say academics, suggesting that it's unlikely that Tehran will engage in new nuclear negotiations with the same actors. On 14 January, the foreign ministers of the UK, France, and Germany – the countries-signatories to the Iran nuclear deal – announced that they [...]

Vladimir Putin’s plane landing in Bishkek despite heavy fog and high humidity is no reason to doubt the skills of Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu’s pilots, who decided to reroute to another airport, a veteran aviator has said. The Russian president’s Ilyushin Il-96-300PU was approaching the airport in the capital of Kyrgyzstan late on Thursday after the crew of Shoigu’s plane had already de [...]

Warsaw was liberated by Soviet forces 75 years ago today — and Polish officials have cloaked the pivotal event in myths ever since. Yet, newly-released historical documents help shed some light on the truth. Official Warsaw had no plans to celebrate this date — but it is not the first time that Poland has ignored the liberation of its state capital. Since the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in the [...]

Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal quoted Karim Elaiwi, a member of the Iraqi parliament’s Security and Defence Committee, as saying that Baghdad was considering purchasing Russian S-400 systems amid concerns that the US may stop supporting the country. According to Joey Hood, the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, Iraq’s possible acquisition of S-4 [...]

Three European signatories to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as Iran nuclear deal, initiated the accord's dispute mechanism on 14 January thus threatening to put an end to the agreement's existence following the US withdrawal from it in 2018. German Defence Minister and head of a governing coalition party, the CDU, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has confirmed that the US indeed thr [...]

France, Britain and Germany have betrayed the 2015 nuclear deal after being threatened with US tariffs, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has claimed, noting that Europe has lost the moral high ground. The three European states accused Tehran of non-compliance with the accord after buckling under pressure from the United Sates, Zarif wrote in a tweet, citing a Washington Post report de [...]

Donald Trump’s threat to cut off Iraq’s access to its account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York if Baghdad insists on a withdrawal of US troops from its soil is bare-faced, modern-day colonialism. Let’s set the scene. On January 5, the Iraqi parliament voted to approve a resolution calling for the removal of US troops. A day later, Donald Trump threatened to hit Iraqis with deadly ec [...]

Europe could have saved the Iran nuclear agreement. Instead, it abused the rule of law by inappropriately triggering its dispute mechanism, all but ensuring the agreement’s demise. On January 5, 2020, Tehran announced that it would no longer comply with its obligations under the Iran nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Program of Action (JCPOA). Iran’s actions are in [...]

In December, US President Donald Trump signed the National Defence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, which, among other things, stipulates sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. The US also threatened to sanction any company or individual involved in providing services on the project. Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg has lashed out at the US over its push for sanct [...]

The Trump administration’s initial justification for the 3 January strike that killed Iran’s Soleimani was the threat of “imminent” attacks against American interests. That rationale proved shaky over the past two weeks, with government officials contradicting one another and even themselves. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that the assassination of Qassem Soleimani was part of [...]

In a bid to pressure the UK into barring Huawei from Britain’s 5G rollout, US officials reportedly went as far as to imply that allowing it on the market would be “madness.” The fears were dampened by the UK spy chief, however. The US has upped the rhetorical ante on its largely unfounded claims that Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei will severely compromise a country’s cyber securit [...]

Commenting on US Defence Secretary Mark T. Esper's statement that a group of US troops will remain in eastern Syria, allegedly to prevent Daesh from accessing the oil fields, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said the statement should not be a surprise. In a statement, the chief spokesman for the Russian Defence Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, noted that the US' stated goal of protecting Syrian oi [...]

The imprisoned WikiLeaks founder appeared at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London on Monday, where a multipart hearing on his possible extradition to the United States was started. Journalists armed with cameras managed to catch a glimpse of Julian Assange Monday night following his extradition hearing, with the WikiLeaks founder filmed from inside a police van outside the court. [...]

The Chinese navy is now in possession of the largest missile destroyer in Asia and the second-largest in the world, following the commission of the Type 055 destroyer Nanchang on Sunday. The Nanchang officially joined the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in a Sunday ceremony in Shandong’s port city of Qingdao, Xinhua News Agency reported. The advanced warship completed its final testing la [...]

Libya's internationally recognized prime minister, Fayez Sarraj, and Khalifa Haftar, who leads the Libyan National Army (LNA) in eastern Libya, held on Monday talks in Moscow on the Libyan crisis mediated by Russia and Turkey. Russian President Vladimir Putin informed later in the day in phone talks German Chancellor Angela Merkel about the recent negotiations and discussed preparations for the up [...]

Bernie Sanders found himself on the receiving end of attacks from both President Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren on Sunday, a reflection of his rising status in the Democratic presidential race and perceived momentum just three weeks out from the Iowa caucuses. In a tweet, Trump declared, “Wow! Crazy Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls, looking very good against his opponents in the Do Not [...]

Iran is thousands of miles away from Britain, yet because the power elites support them, anti-government protests in Tehran receive much wider coverage in the UK than the ones in France, just across the Channel. How many British people have ever visited Iran? How many have lived there or have second homes there? I suspect the figures are very small. It’s quite a contrast with France. In 2018, [...]

The US political and media establishment is belatedly lashing out at “democratic socialist” presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, who has taken the lead in polls by laying into the Democratic Party elite’s bland corporate centrism. “Democrats had better attack Sanders before it’s too late!” Monday’s Daily Beast headline may be hyperbole, but it accurately expressed the mood of the pa [...]

US President Donald Trump has lashed out against the “fake news media” and their “Democrat partners” over criticism of his administration’s decision to assassinate Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. The president claimed in tweets marred with misspellings that it does not matter if Soleimani presented an imminent threat to the US, something he had said previously to defend the assassinati [...]

According to NATO's nuclear weapons obligations, dating back to the Cold War, German planes are to carry US bombs in the event of an atomic strike. Although the country’s Tornado fighter jets are close to the end of their operational life and already cost millions of dollars to taxpayers, it remains unclear which aircraft will replace them. [...]