America's global approval rating has plunged to its lowest point in a decade, according to a new Gallup poll, with Germany and China ahead on the world stage. A thousand adults, aged 15 years or older across more than 130 countries, were questioned between March and November 2017. [...]

Russia has accused the US of fueling the conflict in Ukraine after the ultra-nationalist Ukrainian Azov battalion was spotted wielding American-made TOW anti-tank weaponry, according to Moscow’s envoy to the OSCE. Russia is concerned that the US is encouraging Kiev to solve the Donbass conflict with force by supplying it with “defensive” heavy weaponry. [...]

Ukraine’s President Poroshenko has praised the US and Canada for approving lethal arms supplies, while Moscow says it subverts the peace process. By including Ukraine on the list of countries approved for lethal weapons sales, Canada has become a side in a bloody civil war, undermining a shaky peace process, a senior Russian senator said, as Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko applauded the m [...]

US President Donald Trump has signed into law $700 billion in funding to the Pentagon, which includes a pay raise for troops and funding for a number of pet projects. It also breaks the ceiling set by the 2011 law on budget caps. Congress sent the final version of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to Trump at the end of November, and he ceremonially signed the bill Tuesday. T [...]

The influential US think-tank the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has the Balkans on its conflict prevention list in its recently published 2018 survey.  However the idea, promoted by the CFR, that the US is the country that can help preserve ‘peace and stability‘ needs to be challenged – as it is the US and its closest NATO allies themselves who are actually responsible for many of the [...]

The Turkish president has called US-backed Syrian Border Force using Kurdish fighters a “terrorist army,” vowing to “drown” it before it’s complete. He also added that military preparations against Kurdish-held Afrin are ready. [...]

Russia-gate is more likely turning into FBI-gate, in the aftermath of the official release of strings of unguarded text messages between Peter Strzok, second in command of counterintelligence at the CIA and his loose-lipped girlfriend, FBI lawyer Lisa Page. [...]

Shares in Facebook dropped by more than 4 percent ahead of Friday's opening bell after the CEO announced changes to the platform’s centerpiece news feed, which he said would hit user engagement in the near term. The company is planning to change the filter for its news feed to prioritize what friends and family share, while reducing the amount of non-advertising content from publishers and brand [...]

By some improbable fluke of physics, a speeding car went airborne and plowed into the second floor of a California office building. The bizarre crash left two people injured. The vehicle became partially wedged in the side of a dental office building after it hit a road divider in the Orange County city of Santa Ana shortly before 5:30am, Sunday. [...]

Two Russian Syria-embedded journalists have put together a damning firsthand report on the true purpose of the secrecy-laden US military mission at At-Tanf, southern Syria. The Pentagon was forced to go into full public relations mode late last month amid fresh allegations by the Russian General Staff that US instructors were providing training assistance for some 350 ex-Daesh (ISIS) militant [...]

Twitter users have pointed out the irony of Donald Trump lamenting immigration from “s***hole countries” wishing to have “more people from places like Norway”: Why would Norwegians immigrate to the United States? Where people are far more likely to be shot, live in poverty, get no healthcare, get no paid parental leave or subsidized daycare, and see fewer women in political power. [...]

Donald Trump’s remarks on “s***hole countries” roused a righteous high-mindedness in his detractors. But a perusal of their own past quotes suggest they are quite capable of similar words – when one particular state is involved. [...]

Advanced weapon systems and lack of necessity for bases in foreign nations are key factors that will allow the Russian military to defend the nation, despite receiving far less funding than their US counterparts, Putin said. [...]

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has questioned the value of Britain’s ‘special relationship’ with the US, suggesting Washington is not actually the UK’s ‘most important ally,’ while criticizing Trump’s ‘endless offensive remarks.’ [...]

The website, Factbase, conducted a thorough analysis of the US President’s interviews and speeches, ranking his speaking skills on the Flesch-Kincaid grade level scale, and here’s their conclusion. Donald Trump has repeatedly boasted of being “like, really smart,” which was dispelled by numerous lexicological tests, studying for vocabulary, comprehension levels, and English language comple [...]

Plans by the City of New York to sue and divest $5 billion worth of pension funds from oil companies accused of harming the environment have been heralded as a major step by environmentalists. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Wednesday that trustees of the city’s $191 billion pension fund are devising ways to divest billions of dollars held in securities from more than 190 compani [...]

The Trump administration’s insistence on improving border security has led to more travelers having their electronic devices snatched by Custom and Border Protection agents in 2017 than ever before in history. [...]

Russia will deliver liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the US, Kommersant daily reports. The reason for the deal is the sharp rise in gas prices on the east coast of the US. An LNG tanker belonging to French energy company Engie is now shipping from the British port of Isle of Grain to an American terminal, Everett, located near Boston. [...]

The CIA has been coordinating weapon deliveries on the Turkey-Syria border, German journalist Jurgen Todenhofer, who recently spoke with a Jabhat al-Nusra commander, told RT. He added that the US knows that the weapons it delivers to rebels end up with terrorists. [...]

The Pentagon said it is “concerned” about weapons falling into terrorists’ hands after Moscow said the drones used in the attacks on Russian bases in Syria could have only been supplied by a “technologically advanced state.” [...]

The question whether Western leaders promised the Soviet Union that NATO would not expand east has been debated for years. Newly declassified papers prove what many Western officials and scholars have denied: A promise was broken. [...]

The United States doesn’t let anyone see its gold reserves. Even if the Treasury has the number of billions it claims, they are not tradable, warns Singapore’s BullionStar precious metals expert Ronan Manly. [...]