European companies now have the opportunity to settle trading accounts in Chinese yuan. The Bank of China in Frankfurt has become the first to operate European yuan clearing. Trading costs will be cut as there will be no dollar exchange first. More than 10 German regional and international banks including Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, DZ Bank AG, and Landesbank Hessen-Thueringen Girozentrale, hav [...]

Electric car producer Tesla Motors has adapted battery technology for household and business applications. The wall-mounted batteries will make solar power more accessible and throttle grid consumption to diminish loads and bills. [...]

Investigations into the downing of flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine are still inconclusive or incomplete a year on from the tragedy. However, this has not stopped the West and their media from apportioning blames, without facts and figures to back up their claims. The search for justice for the families of those killed on MH17 continues. CrossTalking with Ray McGovern, Alexander Mercouris, and Pa [...]

In a diverse field of competitors made up of pop stars, technology gurus, visionaries and politicians - and at a time when US-Russia relations have hit rock bottom - President Putin has emerged victorious in Time magazine - 2015 reader poll. Among the 100 most influential people in the world, as hand selected by the editors of TIME, the Russian leader proved his rock-star credentials by edging [...]

Austrians have launched a petition to quit the EU, arguing that the nation will be better off economically if it leaves the union. To force the national parliament to consider the initiative activists need to have gathered 100,000 signatures by July 1. The petition was started by a retired 66-year-old translator, Inge Rauscher, who has collected enough signatures to launch an official campaign. [...]

European leaders know that the US wants to get them to spend money on military equipment which will be purchased from the US, says Brian Becker of the anti-war Answer Coalition. But Europe knows the dangers from the experience of two world wars, he added. Several senior American officials say Russia is the greatest threat to their country's national security. [...]

Sustainable development, global security and efforts to diffuse ongoing conflicts, many of which have resulted in explosive global refugee crises, top the agenda of the 70th anniversary UN General Assembly session that has begun its work in New York. The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) speech marathon will see more than 160 leaders in attendance at the 70th anniversary. [...]

Iceland is planning to formally withdraw its EU application, the country's prime minister told the national radio station. Reykjavik also wants to lift capitals controls imposed on Iceland by Brussels after a financial crisis hit the country in 2008. Despite expected public protests, Iceland is going to make a second attempt to withdraw its application to become a member state of the European U [...]

Washington plans to station hardware, including tanks and armored vehicles, in a number of European countries, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced on Tuesday. Nukes withdrawn in the 1980s will not return to Europe. Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania will be hosting the new hardware, and it will be possible to move it around for exercises, Carter said as he stood with h [...]

Following an inquiry, the media authority of Thuringia (TLM) has found no breach of legislation pertaining to the broadcast of RT’s show The Missing Part (Der Fehlende Part) by regional German TV channel Salve.TV. TLM, broadcast regulator of the federal state of Thuringia, stated that it had no objections to Salve.TV airing RT’s The Missing Part. [...]

The German intelligence service estimates the real losses in the Ukrainian civil war at 50,000 dead (civilians and servicemen), which is nearly 10 times higher than reported by the Kiev authorities, German media report. The information comes from a source in German intelligence, who spoke to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAZ) newspaper. [...]

The US 6th Fleet has made public a video which is described as showing the Russian jet interaction with the USS Ross warship in the Black Sea on May 30. The video was shot aboard the sea vessel. “[USS] Ross continued on her mission after observing the aircraft return to base. [...]

The heads of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk Republics in eastern Ukraine have asked the United Nations Security Council to establish an international tribunal to investigate and prosecute those responsible for waging civil war in Donbass. “Donetsk People’s Republic [DNR] and Lugansk [LNR] People’s Republic are addressing the UN Security Council with a plea to establish an interna [...]

Amnesty International has accused Washington of "sweeping under the carpet" a December Senate report that the CIA tortured militants using the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" during the post 9/11 War on Terror. Naureen Shah, a researcher for Amnesty, accused the Obama administration of ignoring the painstaking five year investigation, which culminated in the Senate Report. [...]

American benchmark WTI crude briefly slipped below $40 per barrel for the first time since 2009, showing an eighth straight weekly decline , the longest streak in almost 30 years. During the intraday trading in New York, the benchmark WTI crude price dropped as low as $39.86 per barrel before settling at $40.45 – some 2.1% drop in one day. [...]

As the U.S. Congress votes for a military confrontation with Russia over Ukraine and even “liberal” commentators cheer the economic pain being inflicted by U.S. policies, it is worth recalling how big-power arrogance sparked the conflagration called World War I and how it could start World War III, writes Greg Maybury. At this point in our history – and especially at this time of the year [...]

Left-wing German politician and former finance minister Oskar Lafontaine has some harsh language message for US on its politics concerning Russia and Ukraine. He has also called on the EU to oppose Washington. In a Facebook post which cannot be quoted fully quote due to strong language, Lafontaine, whose latest political post was co-chairman of the democratic socialist party The Left, called US [...]

The Bank of England (BoE) has warned the Greek debt crisis is a threat to UK financial stability and could trigger wider problems on financial markets. In its twice-yearly Financial Stability Report published Wednesday, the BoE claimed the risks associated with Greece had “worsened” and that the situation “remains fluid.” [...]

Western media reports of Russian missiles hitting Iran are “blatant lies” and part of a campaign of psychological warfare, a top Iranian military commander said. CNN claimed four Russian cruise missiles fell in Iran instead of continuing toward Syria. “We have no reports of any Russian missiles crashing in Iran,” Gen. Musa Kamali told Russian news agency Sputnik. “All those media repo [...]

The US and its Western allies are well aware of all the ceasefire violations in eastern Ukraine but, deliberately turn a blind eye to Kiev's actions, hackers said after obtaining the emails of top Ukrainian official overseeing the truce. The anti-Kiev hacktivist group, CyberBerkut, claims to have hacked the emails of Major-General Andrey Taran, Chief of the Joint Centre for Ceasefire Control an [...]

Russia has no binding obligations limiting its armed forces in its western region, which means if the US deploys heavy weapons in Eastern Europe and the Baltic States, there will be an equivalent response from Moscow, Russia's top general said. “If America’s heavy arms, be it tanks, artillery systems or other heavy military hardware are deployed to Eastern Europe and the Baltic States, it w [...]

The Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia in partnership with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) has agreed to invest $10 billion into Russian projects. It is the largest foreign investment in Russia. "We have reached final agreements and are announcing the creation of a partnership with the sovereign fund of Saudi Arabia, under which PIF will invest $10 billion into projects on R [...]