Washington’s attempts to derail the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project to supply Russian natural gas to the European Union will definitely backfire, according to a geopolitical expert Dr. Pierre-Emmanuel Thomann. [...]

Donald Trump wasn’t bluffing when he vowed to cripple Turkey economically if it attacks Syria’s Kurds, analysts told RT. The move, however, would likely have serious negative repercussions for Washington. [...]

The cash-strapped US Coast Guard has quietly removed a “tip sheet” it had posted on its website suggesting that employees hold garage sales, babysit, or take up other odd jobs to make ends meet during the government shutdown. [...]

With Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) entering the 2020 presidential fray, establishment figures on both Right and Left are scrambling to smear the anti-war congresswoman with impeccable identity-politics bona fides. [...]

Integrity Initiative’s crusade to create a lockstep anti-Russia narrative in Europe and the US has hit a roadblock: According to the shadowy organization, Norwegians are too skeptical of US politics and not adequately anti-Russia. [...]

The current shutdown of the US government has become the longest in the nation’s history, as unpaid federal employees walk off the job in increasing numbers. An estimated 800,000 federal workers employed by the US government are starting to feel the pinch as Friday paychecks were missed and key travel security sectors — particularly in airports — are seeing walkouts, according to multiple re [...]

The US House of Representatives has endorsed legislation terminating a partial government shutdown in spite of President Donald Trump’s demand for border wall financing. Radio Sputnik has discussed the recent developments surrounding the government shutdown with Shane Hazel, a former US congressional candidate from the GOP. [...]

Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has lashed out at the US for its position on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Former Chancellor of Germany Gerhard Schroeder said Saturday that the US has its own energy interests in Europe, which explains the pressure Washington is exerting on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project. [...]

The five-meter-high avalanche descended near Peak Sentis on the Schwagalp Pass as a result of heavy snowfall; the search for the missing is underway, according to Swiss German daily Tagblatt. An avalanche hit the restaurant of the Hotel Santis in Schwagalp in the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden in eastern Switzerland on Thursday, according to media reports. [...]

Earlier, UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson boasted that Britain's new fleet of F-35s served as a message to the country's "enemies", including Russia, not to "mess with" Britain. Moscow is perplexed by the militaristic tone taken by the UK Ministry of Defence, and will respond appropriately if Russia's security is threatened, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. [...]

Washington’s criticism of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project to deliver Russian gas to Europe bypassing transit countries has been strongly rejected by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. [...]

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the US a “force for good” in the Middle East. A closer look at the evidence reveals this to be the greatest lie ever told in the era of “fake news.” [...]

The Central Bank of Russia has moved further away from reliance on the US dollar and has axed its share in the country’s foreign reserves to a historic low, transferring about $100 billion into euro, Japanese yen and Chinese yuan. [...]

The USSR and then Russia on the one side and Japan on the other never signed a peace treaty after the end of the Second World War largely due to the unresolved issue of sovereignty over the Kuril Islands. [...]

Over 61,000 professional aircraft pilots are telling Trump to end the government shutdown, warning of security threats in US skies. With US President Donald Trump hunkered down in the White House tweeting his new "presidential harassment" slogan regarding the growing political opposition on Capitol Hill at the hands of a newly Democratic House of Representatives, US airline pilots have released on [...]

The United States Department of Defense’s supply chains have deteriorated, and they now require significant modernization – and taxpayer funding – if Washington wishes to make war with Russia or China, according to an internal Pentagon report. [...]

The Trump administration quietly downgraded the diplomatic status of the European Union’s mission to the US late last year, without informing the diplomats themselves, a German report has revealed. The European Union’s delegation to the US, which had previously enjoyed nation-state ambassador status, was reduced to “international organization” sometime in late October or early November 201 [...]

A postliterate society is a hypothetical society in which multimedia technology has advanced to the point where literacy, the ability to read or write, is no longer necessary or common. The term appears as early as 1962 in Marshall McLuhan's The Gutenberg Galaxy. Many science-fiction societies are postliterate, as in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Dan Simmons' novel Ilium, and Gary Shteyngart's [...]

Authorities in southern Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have closed highways and some railroads due to heavy snowfall in the region, according to Fox News reports. Thousands of tourists ended the Christmas holiday in the Alps on 6 January being evacuated due to heavy snowfall, including visitors to the popular Matterhorn in Switzerland, Fox News reported, saying that airports and trains have exp [...]

Rick Sanchez takes a look at China’s response to the Trump Administration tariffs imposed on Beijing, as US telecom giant Apple losses 64 billion dollars of its value. Apple CEO Tim Cook blames the tit-for-tat and the Trump administration’s trade war with China. Is Apple blameless, or is this a show of force as Apple falls third in the market behind Samsung and Huawei? Host of Boom Bust Bar [...]

US President Donald Trump told reporters in the Rose Garden on Friday that he has considered using emergency powers to build his vision of a border wall along the US' southern border with Mexico. [...]

The hackers that have allegedly stolen gigabytes of so-far-unknown and potentially sensational information about the 9/11 attacks have urged governments and individuals to come and get what they have. They tease that the most hard-hitting part of the documents, which they estimate at $2 million, would eventually "bury" the deep state. [...]