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.   [...]

French political analyst Thierry Meyssan ponders the intricacies and contradictions of US foreign policy, and suggests that despite inconsistencies, Washington has been generally successful in focusing on the promotion of two overarching goals: creating a cordon between Europe and Russia [...]

Small things can make all the difference, but so can $3.32 trillion – the amount required by the American Society of Civil Engineers to rectify the US’ major infrastructure weaknesses. Even worse, ignoring the problem will only make it more expensive. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has released a study and an estimate revealing how expensive and expansive the crumbling infr [...]

Not everyone was happy about the three-hour long talks between Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe which took place in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi on Friday. While for Abe the meeting was diplomatically significant — a chance to discuss the disputed Kuril islands face-to-face with Putin — for the White House, it was an unwelcome fissure in the united front Washing [...]

The French government ignored its own intelligence in dealing with crises in Ukraine and Syria, and recklessly followed Washington’s lead by joining anti-Russian sanctions, dealing a huge blow to its agriculture, said a former French intelligence boss. [...]

Tens of thousands came out in the capital of Italy to decry the secretive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal between the EU and the United States, which protesters believe would push Europe into corporate slavery. [...]