General Qassem Soleimani was one of the most responsible for defeating Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, and his killing is a “great tragedy” that could result in a “vast war” with Iran, a Virginia senator and Marine veteran told RT. In a statement to RT on Friday, retired Virginia Senator Richard Black said that the assassination “may presage a new war of aggression—this time, against the [...]

President Donald Trump brought a surprise guest—Venezuela opposition leader Juan Guaidó--to his 2020 State of the Union address. Trump criticized Guaidó’s rival Nicolas Maduro before recognizing Guaidó in the House Chambers. “Mr. President, please take this message back to your homeland. All Americans are united with the Venezuelan people in their righteous struggle for freedom,” Trum [...]

Chelsea Manning is being subjected to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, constituting torture by the US government over her refusal to testify against whistleblower website WikiLeaks, a top United Nations official has said. UN special rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer accused the government of torturing Manning in a November letter, which was just released on Tuesday. In the letter, Melzer [...]

US tariffs meant to boost the US economy by eliminating “unfair” trade practices, primarily by China, actually took a toll on manufacturing sector jobs and hiked prices, a study by the US Federal Reserve Board has concluded. The Fed has become the latest body to stress the damaging consequences of “unprecedented” punitive tariffs unleashed by US President Donald Trump on China and other tr [...]

Investigative journalist Mark Curtis and Matt Kennard have detailed extensive undisclosed links between the Cheif Magistrate Emma Arbthnot, her husband, and her son and the British national security state. Niki Konstantinidis, a barrister and supporter of Julian Assange, has filed a complaint with the Judicial Appointments and Conduct Ombudsman (“the Ombudsman”) against England’s top magistr [...]

Those who lobbied to have George W. Bush and Tony Blair tried for their role in the Iraq War have finally got their wish. Though the verdict of the court carries no legal weight, its supporters believe its symbolic value is beyond doubt. The court in Malaysia where the trial took place may not have the power to convict, but the verdict against the former British and American leaders was unanimous. [...]

Europe’s total dependence on Washington would lead it nowhere other than to its own demise, a senior adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has alleged, calling on Europeans to break free from America’s grip. Europe is a major political force on the international arena, yet it prefers to “quietly follow the policy imposed” by Washington, Ali Akbar Velayati told RT Arabic. [...]

The leadership of the chemical weapons watchdog took efforts to remove the paper trail of a dissenting report from Douma, Syria which pointed to a possible false flag operation there, leaked documents indicate.  In an internal email published by the transparency website WikiLeaks on Friday, a senior official from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) ordered that the doc [...]

On Friday, US President Donald Trump signed the FY2020 National Defence Authorisation Act into law, with its provisions including sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project. A day later, the Treasury confirmed that the restrictions had snapped into place. [...]

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is going to be completed despite the latest US sanctions, former US diplomat Jim Jatras told RT, adding that the last-ditch attempt to derail its launch is a gesture of despair by Washington. [...]

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to close US and NATO military bases in Turkey after the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Wednesday, approved a bill imposing sanctions on Ankara after its offensive in Syria and purchase of Russian S-400 missile systems. 'If necessary, we can close Incirlik, and we can close Kurecik", Erdogan told Turkish channel Haber TV on Sunday. [...]

Earlier US President Donald Trump enacted the $738 billion National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA), a military budget package for the coming year that includes sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova commented on new US sanctions against the Nord Stream-2 and Turkish Stream pipelines, saying that the state, with its historically unpr [...]

India is upbeat following talks in the US, where political and defensive initiatives were laid out amid a climate of tension between the US and China. But can Washington be trusted to live up to its end of the bargain? Judging by Washington’s dismal track record for trashing treaties and agreements, it’s hard to imagine that American diplomats have much work to do these days. As many countries [...]

Allseas, a Swiss-Dutch company laying the Nord Stream 2 pipeline off the Danish coast, has announced it is suspending its work and will pull out of the project after being faced with an avalanche of sanctions by the US. The company, which operates two vessels installing deep-sea pipes for Nord Stream 2 on the bottom of the Baltic Sea, released its statement just before US President Donald Trump si [...]

When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to close a vital airbase used by American forces, he wasn’t bluffing, and Washington should take his threats at face value, or risk losing a NATO ally, analysts say. [...]

The Chinese tech giant has made strides to replace American-made hardware, software and technology in its 5G internet and smartphone divisions after being placed on a US Commerce Department blacklist earlier this year. Huawei has begun manufacturing 5G base stations – the towers facilitating wireless communication between mobile devices and internet networks, without the use of parts made in the [...]

Earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara will not abandon the Russian S-400 air defence systems in order to buy American Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a statement that Ankara may insist that the US leave Incirlik air base if Washington goes ahead with the sanctions it has threatened in response to Turkey's purchase [...]

President Donald Trump has approved legislation backing Hong Kong’s ‘pro-democracy’ protest movement, disregarding Beijing’s repeated warnings for Washington to mind its own business and stop meddling in China's internal affairs. Dubbed the 'Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act,' the bill blazed through both houses of Congress earlier this month with virtually unanimous consent from la [...]

The White House has long sought to take counter-measures against the Turkish-Russian deal and now it is reportedly clinging to a new chance to put a spoke in the wheel. US President Trump has offered his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan a set of economic inducements for better US-Turkey relations, according to The Washington Post. [...]

President Trump has applauded the latest jobs report and its positive effect on stock markets as critics unleashed on him for his failed promise to tame the US government spending spree that pushed the national debt over $23tn. [...]

Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden – who, back in the good old Obama administration days, lobbied for the arming of ‘moderate’ rebels in Syria – slammed Trump for downgrading the US military to an oilfield occupation force. “Leaving troops behind like [Trump’s] doing now – he says that what he wants to do is we’re going to occupy the oil fields and we’re going to take [...]

On Sunday President Trump announced that Baghdadi had been killed during the US-raid in Idlib. The number one terrorist was reportedly under the Pentagon's surveillance for quite some time before the conditions were ripe to eliminate him. The leader of the Daesh* terrorist group Abu Bakr Baghdadi was "the brainchild of the United States", and his elimination has not yet been confirmed, Russian For [...]