Beijing looks to garner international favor through a massive investment effort in Europe and Asia. China is now nearly three years into Xi Jinping’s cooperative development strategy with European partners known as "One Belt, One Road," or the "New Silk Road." The plan is part of China's push to leverage their economic potential to maximize geopolitical influence. [...]

Legal double standards are the norm in the U.S. – no jail for law-flouting Wall Street bankers but mass incarceration for average citizens, especially minorities, who get caught up in the prison-industrial-complex, as Michael Brenner describes. Illicit financial behavior has been decriminalized in the United States – for all practical purposes. [...]

As the U.S. government ratchets up a new Cold War, Poland is taking hostility toward Russia to the next level, inviting in U.S. military bases and arresting an anti-NATO politician on vague “espionage” charges, writes Gilbert Doctorow. Since Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice Party returned to power last fall, the new government has been cracking down on independent media, reshaping the [...]

America may lag behind the developed world in many categories, but it is No. 1 in the “merchant of death” business, experiencing a boom in the commerce of boom, especially in areas destabilized by U.S. invasions, notes JP Sottile. Who says nothing is made in the USA anymore? Certainly not the well-heeled denizens of the State Department’s diplomatic corps. And they should know. That’s b [...]

The US Treasury Department has exposed Saudi Arabia's total US debt holdings for the first time in 40 years, allowing analysts to answer the crucial question of whether or not Riyadh can carry out its threat to undermine America's economy. A month ago, Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir threatened Washington, saying his country would sell off up to $750 billion in US Treasures and o [...]

For 41 years the amount of Saudi Arabia's holdings in US Treasuries remained shrouded in secrecy. What was behind the mysterious deal It seemed all was lost in 1974: following the Yom Kippur War (Arab-Israeli War) of 1973, the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries proclaimed an oil embargo in response to Washington's aid to Israel which led to the "first oil shock." [...]

More information is needed for an open discussion on the most important issues of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which has only been discussed behind closed doors, said Petter Slaatrem Titland, activist and chair at Attac, Norway. A leaked exchange of testy e-mails between US and EU officials shows signs of growing disagreements, with the two sides locked in secreti [...]

If targeting the civilian population of an entire city with a nuclear bomb, and incinerating tens of thousands of men, women, and children in the process, is not worthy of an apology then ‘humanity’ has become a word without meaning. Step forward US President Barack Obama and his statement in advance of his visit to Hiroshima that he will not apologize for the nuclear bomb dropped by the U [...]

Almost uniformly, the western think tankers and media types who comment on Russia purport to be strongly concerned with freedom. After all, the central tenet of their anger with the country’s rulers is what they perceive as a lack of democracy. The usual charge goes something like this. Putin is a “dictator” who is suppressing the liberty loving Russian people and crippling their hopes and d [...]

Turkey has questioned its relationship with the US, with the deputy prime minister saying it is "unsuitable" for soldiers of a country which is friends with Ankara to wear the badges of a "terrorist organization." [...]

EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker plans to visit Russia on June 16, during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Reuters reports, citing his spokesperson. The Commission president would be the first leader of an EU institution to visit Russia since sanctions were imposed in March 2014 over the conflict in Ukraine. [...]

Washington has suspended the transfer of cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia. That’s according to Foreign Policy magazine citing unnamed US officials. Radio Sputnik discussed the reported decision with political analyst and the editor of Politics First magazine, Dr. Marcus Papadopoulos. [...]

US foreign policy in Syria is schizophrenic and opportunist as they are combating the Assad government, which has done the bulk of the fighting against Islamic State and the terrorists in general, Brian Becker, from the anti-war ANSWER Coalition told RT. [...]

It's been more than two years since the Affordable Care Act, which you probably know better as Obamacare, went into full effect for individual consumers, and in that time the new health law has enrolled about 12.7 million people. Note that this doesn't take into account the millions of Americans who've been able to get health insurance through the expansion of Medicaid and CHIP within their res [...]

Recent revelations that expose how the U.S. government retaliates against national security whistleblowers show why it was necessary for Edward Snowden to go public with his mass surveillance leaks, author Mark Hertsgaard said in an interview with Democracy Now! on Monday. One day after high-ranking Department of Defense official John Crane exposed the Pentagon's legacy of retaliation against w [...]

The chairman of the Russian Constitutional Court has said that Barack Obama’s statements about American exceptionalism were very similar to propaganda used by Nazi Germany and equally dangerous to world peace. “The idea of specialness, exceptionality and unique rights of the American state and American people has been used in US internal political rhetoric for quite a while, [...]

As the West is sucked deeper into the Syrian conflict and starts a new Cold War with Russia, the mainstream news media has collapsed as a vehicle for reliable information, creating a danger for the world, writes Robert Parry. Does any intelligent person look at a New York Times article about Russia or Vladimir Putin these days and expect to read an objective, balanced account? [...]

Less than a week after Russia marked its annual Victory Day commemoration of the end of the Second World War, NATO troops began planned military exercises in Estonia all the way up to Russia’s border. It begs the question – are these people actually mad? [...]

As Brazil’s left-wing president, Dilma Rousseff, has been suspended from office to face trial for disregarding budget laws, details have emerged on key figures involved in what Rousseff supporters are calling a coup, hinting at a covert plot involving Washington. [...]

After revelations that the CIA "mistakenly" destroyed its only copy of a controversial Senate torture report, US officials and human rights organizations have increased calls to make the study public. Radio Sputnik’s Loud and Clear speaks with former CIA official John Kiriakou about the potentially explosive information contained in the report. "It’s virtually impossible to 'accidentally' d [...]

Political dissident and noted US scholar Noam Chomsky is warning that the Republican Party may be “the most dangerous organization in human history.” The world-renowned author, philosopher, and social critic told DemocracyNow’s Amy Goodman about his concerns on the state of the American right wing and the 2016 election. [...]

$20 million over the next two fiscal years will be made available in the form of grants to unspecified people in Europe who will presumable carry stories that are more in line with US policy, Jim Jatras, former US diplomat, told RT.   [...]