In his speech to the Cuban people in Havana, President Barack Obama declared, “I have come here to bury the last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas. … I’ve urged the people of the Americas to leave behind the ideological battles of the past.” But Obama made clear that his desire to end the decades-long US economic blockade of the island is not based on the fact that it constitutes [...]

Following high-profile meetings in Moscow, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a joint news conference on Thursday night. Both diplomats agreed on the importance of strengthening bilateral relations between Washington and Moscow. [...]

Russia’s military campaign in Syria seems to have changed President Barack Obama’s opinion of its armed forces. He now says it’s "the second-most powerful military in the world." Two years ago he labeled Moscow as nothing more than a "regional power." Speaking at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) conference in California, [...]

Washington and its allies created the Islamist Frankenstein with their own hands: over the decades radical Muslim 'agents of destruction' have formed the belt of instability which stretches across the MENA region to Central Asia and beyond. But how did it all begin? Back in December 1979 the USSR deployed a limited contingent of Soviet troops in Afghanistan in response to repeated requests from [...]

The early March assassination of Honduran social movement leader Berta Cáceres provoked international outcry, and calls for 2016 presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton to discuss her support of the country’s 2009 coup, which ousted democratically [...]

Bulk data gathering programs used by US intelligence have no effect in combating terrorism and have failed to prevent any attacks in their 10 years of operation, whistleblower and former NSA contactor Edward Snowden, claims in a recent interview. “In the wake of the revelations of mass surveillance the [US] president [Barack Obama] appointed two independent commissions to review the efficienc [...]

The United States doesn't want to see Chinese and Russian companies operating in Bolivia, and has instructed Washington-supported opposition forces to try and stop them, says Bolivian President Evo Morales, citing the recent scandal around China's CAMC Engineering Co, which managed to unfairly [...]

The US Justice Department cautioned local courts that it is unconstitutional to jail someone for not paying fines without determining whether they are able to pay, and warned against using court fees to generate revenue for cities. The warnings came as part of an effort to reform court practices that “perpetuate poverty and result in unnecessary deprivations of liberty,” the Justice Depar [...]

NATO Supreme Allied Commander Philip Breedlove recently took US hawks' campaign of Russia-baiting up a notch, suggesting Russia and Syria have 'deliberately weaponized' refugees to 'break European resolve'. The remarks, and the mainstream media's ability to convey them with a straight face, are an indication of a broken system, experts suggest. [...]

It has now been two years since Crimea declared independence from Ukraine, with a referendum on joining Russia approved by 96% of voters. Ex-CIA official Ray McGovern told Radio Sputnik’s Brian Becker that the reunification was predetermined, taking into account Russia’s history, events in [...]

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, whose novel Time of the Octopus provided the basis for the upcoming movie “Snowden” shot by Oliver Stone, spoke to RT about the unexpected challenges filmmakers encountered in the US. Simply called Snowden, the biographical thriller directed by Oliver Stone tells the story of the US National Security Agency whistleblow [...]

In the post-Cold War era, US leadership has treated Russia as a "third-rate power," whose opinion on and concerns over Washington's key foreign policy initiatives in Europe were consistently disregarded as insignificant and manageable, former US Defense Secretary William James Perry told the Guardian. [...]

A cast of colorfully corrupt characters, Including former Georgian puppet leader Saakashvili, are involved in the blatant US takeover of a country on Russia’s doorstep, one geopolitical analyst told Sputnik. The US colonial experiment in Eastern Europe has taken on a new urgency this week [...]

In a troubling sign of domestic operations by the US military, the Pentagon has admitted to flying spy drones over the continental United States during the past decade. Human rights activists have long questioned the ethical implications of Washington’s drone use. [...]

Consistent disregard of Russia’s interests by the US, as well as Washington’s dismissive attitude towards Moscow in the post-Cold War era, have led to strained relations between the two, former US Defense Secretary William Perry told the Guardian. [...]

The FBI has changed its privacy rules regarding how freely agents can gain access to and search data collected by the National Security Agency that involves the communications of Americans. It just won’t say what the changes are. Additionally, there’s no word on when the changes were actually made, since that information is classified as well. [...]

US authorities are expanding their investigation against German Volkswagen AG over emissions, media reported. The US Department of Justice is planning to apply the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act, FIRREA, which has been repeatedly used against banks after 2008 [...]

The Washington and Moscow-sponsored truce in Syria may be the last chance for the country to stop the bloodshed, opposition groups said in a joint statement after a meeting at the Russian center for Syrian reconciliation. The leaders of several Syrian opposition groups as well as public and religious figures voiced support for the ongoing peace conference in Geneva [...]

The US is negotiating a plan with Australia to rotate long-range bombers and tankers, including the nuclear-capable B-1 bomber. Last year Australia denied a US official said such plans were in motion. "We're in the process of talking about rotational forces, bombers and tankers out of Australia [...]

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has accused the US State Department of attempting to influence a Russian court’s decision in the case of Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko. Zakharova questioned the authenticity of the statement attributed to US Secretary of State [...]

In the lead-up to International Women's Day on March 8th, we present an excerpt from False Choices: The Faux Feminism of Hillary Clinton. In March 2003, just before the US invasion of Iraq, about one hundred CODEPINK women dressed in pink slips weaved [...]

The South China Sea has turned into Asia's battleground for supremacy between Beijing and Washington, Richard Javad Heydarian, a specialist in Asian geopolitical affairs, notes, adding that the US decades-long naval hegemony in the region may soon vanish into thin air. [...]