During a televised address, President Obama emphasized that ISIL is an existential threat, but at the same time refused to admit that the US has no responsibility for the conflicts it fuelled in the Mideast, Brian Becker of the Anti- war coalition told RT. On Sunday President Obama a speech on how to defeat ISIS, while adding that the recent San Bernardino shooting was a terrorist act, calling [...]

The Democratic convention featured senior never-Trump figures from the Republican Party, but Tulsi Gabbard, a primary contestant who won delegates, wasn’t invited. Was that due to her anti-war rhetoric or Hillary Clinton’s grudge? This week’s Democratic virtual gathering to nominate the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris ticket for the November election was a triumph of party centrism over the progress [...]

The deployment of Turkish tanks and troops in Iraq is a gross violation of international law, and is being carried out with the implicit blessing of the United States, according to Russian Middle East expert Boris Dolgov. In an interview with Sputnik, Boris Dolgov, a prominent Russian expert on the Middle East, said that Turkey's move to send troops to Iraq is a gross violation of international [...]

The world's first anti-COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V was registered in Russia on 11 August, following several rounds of clinical trials and has now been made available to the public across the country. More than a dozen countries have now expressed interest in obtaining the vaccine. The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which funded the development of Sputnik V, announced on Wednesday [...]

Sputnik is a major new media brand with modern multimedia centers in dozens of countries. Sputnik is uniquely positioned as a provider of alternative news content and as a radio broadcaster. Offering a fuller picture of the world with a truly diverse range of views, Sputnik tells the untold. [...]

President Donald Trump denied a New York Times report suggesting he paid almost no federal income taxes over the past two decades, saying the truth will be revealed when an Internal Revenue Service audit of his returns is over. "It's totally fake news – made-up, fake," Trump told reporters Sunday in a White House briefing, noting that he had to deal with similar questions when the Times publish [...]

he political standoff between the West and Russia has put many through difficult times. Russia is living through a severe crisis, exacerbated by EU sanctions – but that’s as business in Europe also is in trouble, as the loss of a major partner has dealt a blow to prosperity. Can the European Union afford the confrontation, given the state some of its economies are in, and the dissent that is g [...]

In mid-September, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned against politicising the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, which he said is profitable for both Russia and the EU. The statement came amid Berlin's threats to freeze the project due to Moscow's alleged role in the purported poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny.German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has told the media group Red [...]

François Hollande and Recep Tayyip Erdogan have recently recognized that betting on Obama's administration is like betting on Don Quixote's giants. Hollande, who recently visited the White House seeking Obama's support in fighting ISIL after Paris attacks, has returned empty-handed. [...]

The US State Department has outlined a ‘Kennan-style’ China containment policy, which it hopes will help undercut its economic strength and maintain a Washington-led world order, a leaked paper has revealed. The 70-page document called “The Elements of the China Challenge” was prepared by the State Department's Office of Policy Planning and published by Axios on Tuesday. The plan goes [...]

The National Assembly of Venezuela, in its final session before a neoliberal dominated opposition takes the helm of legislative power on January 5, passed one of the most progressive seed laws in the world on December 23, 2015; it was promptly signed into law by President Nicolas Maduro. [...]

"KILL EVERYBODY" - US ARMY SPECIALIST DARRELL ANDERSON EXPOSES US POLICY "I joined in '03," 'cause I was broke, I needed money, but I was a young American kid, I wanted to fight in a war. I joined up. [A] month out of training I arrived in Baghdad, Iraq, January '04. Saddam's been captured. [...]

The continuing surge of coronavirus cases across the US along with the inevitable restrictions that are employed to stave off the spread of the pandemic are forecast to weigh heavily on economic recovery. The US economy is predicted as heading towards a potential contraction in economic growth early next year, marking the first "double dip" recession in the country’s history since the e [...]

Terrorism has come to look very different from what confronted the West over a decade ago. Most ad hoc commissions come and go without a trace. Not so, the 9/11 Commission. Its final report became a national bestseller. Its findings served as the touchstone for explaining what happened on that dreadful day the terrorists went after New York City and Washington, D.C. Even more important, the rep [...]

Touting his administration's coronavirus pandemic response, outgoing US President Donald Trump has been particularly praising the amount of COVID-19 tests performed in the United States, claiming: "we test more than anybody". Donald Trump pointed a finger at his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, stating that it "would be his fault" if the 2020 presidential election did not go [...]

Dark money groups have spent $143 million on the 2016 U.S. presidential election since last July—nearly four times as much as the candidates' own campaigns, Politico reported in a new analysis on Tuesday. The origins of most of that funding will never be revealed, while some of it will be made public at midnight on January 31, just hours before the Iowa caucuses, writes Politico's chief inves [...]

Holidays abroad might have been an early casualty of Covid-19 lockdowns, but Russia is betting that wanderlust has only grown, and plans to make it easier for tourists to take a long trip round the world’s largest country. Under the rule change, adopted by the national parliament in its first reading on Wednesday, visas for sightseers can be issued for up to six months, and can be granted s [...]

The price may vary depending on the exchange rate of the national currency. The cost of a single dose of the Russian vaccine against the Ebola virus is approximately $160, the director of the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology said Friday. [...]

Belief in the importance of democracy is high in 53 sampled countries but inequality and big tech companies are seen as the biggest threats.  The US faces an uphill task presenting itself as the chief guardian of global democracy, according to a new poll that shows the US is seen around the world as more of a threat to democracy than even Russia and China. The poll finds support for democracy [...]

A breakup of the Schengen area amid the crisis the European Union is now going through will have an immediate impact on the euro and the European economy as a whole, Deutsche Welle warned on Saturday. Brussels is fully aware of the fact that if the European countries fail to get the situation under control and agree urgent measures to end the migrant crisis, it would spell the end of the Scheng [...]

The country’s economy is cratering, there are shortages of fuel and medicines, and people are going hungry on the streets. Yet what does the West worry most about? Hezbollah helping the starving get food. Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab has warned the international community that the country could collapse in days, as even Israel offers aid fearing the expansion of Lebanese H [...]

ANN JONES, went to Norway in 2011 as a Fulbright Fellow and recently returned to the U.S. Her books include, They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America’s Wars — the Untold Story. She just wrote the piece “American Democracy Down for the Count: Or What Is It the Scandinavians Have That We Don’t?” [...]