The fallout continues from ‘Operation Gideon’, the brazen May 3-4 attempt by a US security contractor to invade Venezuela, kidnap its president and take him back to the United States. The White House remains in damage control mode, denying any responsibility for the plot while seeking to bring the captured US mercenaries involved back home.
Diosdado Cabello, president of Venezuela’s [...]
Peru is being “cautious” in not disclosing the flight path of a plane loaded with Covid-19 testing kits, its disease response chief has said, with the US accused of “confiscating” supplies meant for other nations. Pilar Mazzetti, who leads Peru’s operational center for Covid-19 response, told Reuters that a plane carrying masks and 300,000 testing kits is due to arrive in the country fro [...]
Coronavirus has taken lives of more than 100,000 people around the world so far, penetrating into almost every corner of our planet. However, some parts of the world have managed to prevent the active spread of the virus with the help of strict quarantine measures. On 11 April, there was no active cases of coronavirus recorded in Greenland, an autonomous territory under the Danish crown which Dona [...]
Despite the impact Covid-19 has had on the global economy, the US is seeking more funding to counter and confront China in the Pacific, as well as enhancing its military preparedness for scenarios involving nuclear warfare. The coronavirus outbreak has impacted the global economy in a unique and unprecedented fashion unseen since World War II. Around 63 percent of Japanese businesses have projecte [...]
Venezuela’s prosecutors have summoned Juan Guaido over his role in the “attempted coup d’etat,” as well as in alleged assassination attempts. Guaido is the main figure in US-backed efforts to oust President Nicolas Maduro. The move was announced by Attorney General Tarek William Saab on Tuesday in a televised speech. The official described Guaido as “one of the main perpetrators” of a [...]
The scrapping by the Philippines of a military partnership with the US occurs with rather embarrassing timing for Washington, as it seeks to rally its allies to adopt America’s hostile line towards China. Evidently, the Southeast Asian nation has decided it doesn’t need Washington’s presumed military ‘protection’ and is confident it can conduct normal relations with China and neighboring [...]
The “Russian collusion” trope didn’t just spring to life with US President Donald Trump in 2016 – accusations of taking help from the evil Russkies have dogged candidates who buck the establishment since the 1960s. Trump may be the best-known candidate to attract allegations of being ‘Putin’s puppet,’ but he is by no means the first. [...]
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is “terminating” the Visiting Forces Agreement, which provides legal immunity to US military drills, in retaliation for the US canceling the visa of a political ally and fellow drug-warrior. “The president said he is terminating the VFA,” Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told ABS-CBN News on Friday. “I asked for clarification and he said he is not [...]
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hit back at threats from Washington over Moscow’s support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, insisting Caracas and its neighbors deserve the option not to be US vassal states. “I have heard the threats from Washington about punishing all those who work with Venezuela,” Lavrov confirmed during a press conference in Mexico City on Thursday. “But [...]
Oliver Stone’s films have won 12 Academy Awards including two for Best Director, as well as a bunch of Golden Globes and BAFTAs. His new focus is documentaries – on Venezuela, Ukraine, and Edward Snowden – all reflecting on the dubious activities of the US government both at home and abroad. Oliver Stone, the award-winning American director and a relentless critic of US administrations, has [...]
A spokesman for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has accused the US of covering up deaths at a base in Iraq after a ballistic missile attack. The US insists nobody was killed, and that its troops suffered brain injuries. [...]
Islamic State terrorists rejoiced at the death of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani at the hands of his American ‘allies,’ according to a weekly newspaper affiliated with the group that once controlled much of Syria and Iraq. Soleimani was killed by a US drone strike on January 3, as he was being driven, with others, near Baghdad international airport. [...]
Speaking to RT, firebrand President Rodrigo Duterte spewed vitriol at the US for seeing the Philippines as "a vassal state," revealing that he has sets his hopes on reaching out to Moscow and Beijing instead. "America is not the Philippines and the Philippines is not America. It ain't that way anymore, and I refuse to dovetail under American foreign policy," Duterte proclaimed in a candid intervie [...]
Although Western media has a shoddy track record of lying on Syria (and Libya, Iraq...), the US State Department will pump $35 million more into future war propaganda on Syria, under the guise of promoting honest reporting. A US State Department grant, “Support for Independent Media in Syria,” is unabashed in stating one of its main goals is “to advance U.S. Government policy objectives in S [...]
A massive demonstration –called for by a prominent Shia cleric– has flooded the streets of the Iraq's capital Baghdad, with thousands voicing their anger at the US military presence there. Early on Friday morning, throngs of protesters – men and women, young and old – began amassing at al-Hurriya Square in central Baghdad, near the city's main university. [...]
Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal quoted Karim Elaiwi, a member of the Iraqi parliament’s Security and Defence Committee, as saying that Baghdad was considering purchasing Russian S-400 systems amid concerns that the US may stop supporting the country. According to Joey Hood, the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, Iraq’s possible acquisition of S-4 [...]
Three European signatories to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as Iran nuclear deal, initiated the accord's dispute mechanism on 14 January thus threatening to put an end to the agreement's existence following the US withdrawal from it in 2018. German Defence Minister and head of a governing coalition party, the CDU, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has confirmed that the US indeed thr [...]
France, Britain and Germany have betrayed the 2015 nuclear deal after being threatened with US tariffs, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has claimed, noting that Europe has lost the moral high ground. The three European states accused Tehran of non-compliance with the accord after buckling under pressure from the United Sates, Zarif wrote in a tweet, citing a Washington Post report de [...]
Donald Trump’s threat to cut off Iraq’s access to its account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York if Baghdad insists on a withdrawal of US troops from its soil is bare-faced, modern-day colonialism. Let’s set the scene. On January 5, the Iraqi parliament voted to approve a resolution calling for the removal of US troops. A day later, Donald Trump threatened to hit Iraqis with deadly ec [...]
In December, US President Donald Trump signed the National Defence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, which, among other things, stipulates sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. The US also threatened to sanction any company or individual involved in providing services on the project. Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg has lashed out at the US over its push for sanct [...]
The Trump administration’s initial justification for the 3 January strike that killed Iran’s Soleimani was the threat of “imminent” attacks against American interests. That rationale proved shaky over the past two weeks, with government officials contradicting one another and even themselves. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that the assassination of Qassem Soleimani was part of [...]
Commenting on US Defence Secretary Mark T. Esper's statement that a group of US troops will remain in eastern Syria, allegedly to prevent Daesh from accessing the oil fields, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said the statement should not be a surprise. In a statement, the chief spokesman for the Russian Defence Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, noted that the US' stated goal of protecting Syrian oi [...]