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. [...]

The impossible has happened and the world we knew has stopped turning around. But what world order will emerge after the coronavirus pandemic is over – socialism for the rich, disaster capitalism or something completely new? These days I sometimes catch myself wishing to get the virus – in this way, at least the debilitating uncertainty would be over. [...]

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 [...]

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 same US intelligence agencies that fed mainstream media the narrative about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction should be trusted when they say RT’s critical reporting is propaganda, according to a BBC-hosted panel on fake news. The four-person panel discussed the phenomenon of fake news on the sidelines of the Davos Economic Forum on Wednesday. Moderating the event was BBC host Zeinab Badawi. [...]

Russian Helicopters and their Mexican partner – the Craft Avia Center announced plans to form a partnership to market the Ansat multi-purpose helicopter in Mexico several years back, with the Mexican side opening a service center earlier this year. The global economic slowdown and coronavirus pandemic has not held Mexico back from taking delivery of its first Ansat helicopter, Jose de V [...]

Even when temperatures drop below -60 degrees Celsius (-76 degrees Fahrenheit), life in Yakutia doesn’t stop. Check out these life hacks, that help local people continue their lives as normal during the notoriously severe Siberian winters. [...]

The global death toll from the pandemic is nearing 280,000, with the United States and Great Britain topping the list of the worst-hit countries. At the same time, China has reported a plunge in new cases of the infection and no fatalities from the virus over the last several weeks. There are over 4,000,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus globally, according to Johns Hopkins Universit [...]

The group is calling for a rational drug policy based on promoting responsible cannabis use, rather than repression and arrest. The Confederation of German Criminal Officers (BDK) has called for the legalization of cannabis, saying that its ban makes no sense. "The prohibition of cannabis has historically been arbitrary and until today it has been neither intelligent, nor purposeful," [...]

A Florida Senator spectacularly claimed he’s got intelligence proving China is obstructing the West’s search for a Covid-19 cure – He shouldn’t be shy to let the world see the “evidence,” Beijing’s diplomats swiftly quipped. Rick Scott, who sits on the Senate’s Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees, pulled no punches when talking China on the BBC on Sunday. Apart from bei [...]

The gradual lifting of sanctions against Russia may start if the Moscow-backed plan to deploy UN peacekeepers in the conflict area of eastern Ukraine is implemented, interim German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said. [...]

Production disruptions caused by the Covid-19 outbreak could cost the global economy twice as much as a hypothetical global military conflict, according to figures cited in a recent research by the McKinsey Global Institute. In a report headlined ‘Risk, resilience, and rebalancing in global value chains’, the analysts of US-based consulting firm McKinsey evaluated various risks of a manuf [...]

The US White House and Pentagon have dismissed Russia’s new nuclear arsenal as “no surprise.” American officials took the opportunity to accuse Russia of treaty violations and boast that their arsenal is “second to none.” [...]

The Phase 3 trial of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca has been paused, reportedly due to a suspected ‘serious adverse reaction’ by one of the participants in the UK. AstraZeneca only said that its “standard review process triggered a pause to vaccination to allow review of safety data,” according to a statement by a company spokesperson on Tue [...]

Rex Tillerson’s criticism in Ethiopia of China’s policy in Africa is inappropriate, says Russia’s Sergey Lavrov. From Zimbabwe, Lavrov slammed the US for interfering in other countries’ affairs, pursuing neo-imperialist ambitions. [...]

After months of campaign promises to help ordinary Americans, President Donald Trump’s first 100 days have revealed that his true policy priorities are benefitting corporations and the wealthiest few at the expense of everyone else. His actions and those of his administration have been characterized by broken promises, gross conflicts of interest, and a stark erosion of transparency, ethics, and [...]

Former NSA employee and whistleblower Edward Snowden speculated on Twitter that the nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel, could face arrest if she sets foot in the European Union because she allegedly was involved in a torture program at a secret CIA prison. "Interesting: The new CIA Director Haspel, who ‘tortured some folks,' probably can't travel to the EU to meet other spy chiefs without fac [...]

India’s vaccines regulator has given the green light for a clinical study of the Russia-developed Covid-19 vaccine. Similar trials of the formulation are underway in Russia itself and in some other nations. The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), a department in India’s drug regulator that is responsible for licensing vaccines, has given its approval for a domestic clinical study of the [...]

Political scientist Basam Raja has explained to Sputnik what British intelligence might have gained from former Russian spy Sergei Skripal’s “attempted murder.” Commenting on the heightened tensions between Russia and the UK, Raja said that recent “media and political attacks on Moscow by London are directly linked to the former’s advances in liberating Eastern Ghouta from militants.” [...]

Russia was widely criticized when it became the first country in the world to register a coronavirus vaccine in August. It was accused of rushing through the approval of the ‘Sputnik V’ formula for political or propaganda gain. Since then the whole development of the vaccine has been dogged by Schadenfreude as the press leapt on signs of impropriety in the data, and Russia has even been acc [...]

SIMFEROPOL (Sputnik) - The suggestion of Ukrainian Ambassador to Berlin Andriy Melnyk to ban German nationals from visiting Crimea is nonsense and an act of interference in Germany's internal affairs, Andreas Maurer, the head of Die Linke party group of the Quakenbruck parliament, told Sputnik. [...]

The original name of the small village has no special meaning or any connotations in German, while the new toponym will better reflect its pronunciation in the local accent. The Austrian village of Fucking (pronounced fooking in Standard German) will change its name to Fugging on 1 January 2021, Mayor Andrea Holzner told the broadcaster Oe24 Thursday. The move to rebrand the village comes [...]