The president went on the offensive against Beijing at the General Assembly on Tuesday, saying he wouldn’t accept a “bad deal” on trade, and accusing China of using “massive market barriers, heavy state subsidies, currency manipulation,” and other malign tactics, while urging the country to “honour” its commitment to “protect Hong Kong’s freedom.” [...]

Clinton faces questioning over her handling of classified information in emails, as well as funds received by the Clinton Foundation while she was in high office, James Conway former FBI agent and Managing Director of Global Intel Strategies told RT. [...]

After the recent Israeli attacks against Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, the Middle East has found itself in the midst of undeclared war. Almost everyone in Lebanon appears to agree. “This time Israel went too far. In just two days, it bombed three countries,” I am told by a local UN staffer based in Beirut. [...]

After revelations that the CIA "mistakenly" destroyed its only copy of a controversial Senate torture report, US officials and human rights organizations have increased calls to make the study public. Radio Sputnik’s Loud and Clear speaks with former CIA official John Kiriakou about the potentially explosive information contained in the report. "It’s virtually impossible to 'accidentally' d [...]

The cottage industry of ‘experts’ predicting the inevitable demise of Russia for years is ignoring the hard evidence of progress such as the infrastructure projects that the West is unable or unwilling to undertake itself. [...]

Three-quarters of federal agencies’ IT budgets go on operation and maintenance rather than upgrades, and some legacy technologies, such as floppy disks used by the Pentagon for nuclear missiles, are over 50 years old. The overview of how the US government continues to use archaic technologies in some vital areas was given in a report released on Wednesday by the Government Accountability Offi [...]

When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to close a vital airbase used by American forces, he wasn’t bluffing, and Washington should take his threats at face value, or risk losing a NATO ally, analysts say. [...]

Distraught over the likely choice of Trump or Clinton, many Americans are thinking about third parties or write-ins, but the process is harder than one might expect, like much else about the U.S. electoral system, notes William John Cox. With the increasingly likelihood of a presidential contest between the generally despised Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, millions of angry voters are consid [...]

President Donald Trump brought a surprise guest—Venezuela opposition leader Juan Guaidó--to his 2020 State of the Union address. Trump criticized Guaidó’s rival Nicolas Maduro before recognizing Guaidó in the House Chambers. “Mr. President, please take this message back to your homeland. All Americans are united with the Venezuelan people in their righteous struggle for freedom,” Trum [...]

The Syrian Army launched on June 3 a large-scale offensive to liberate the city of Raqqa, the de-facto capital of the Daesh caliphate. Retired Syrian Major General Sabet Muhammad told the Russian newspaper Izvestia that the operation started from the town of Isriya, in Hama province, nearly 140 km to the west from Raqqa. [...]

During the 19 December end-of-the-year press conference, President Vladimir Putin specifically underscored Moscow’s assertiveness in the face of the West’s ongoing sanctions pressure against Russia, saying that the country’s “economy has adapted to foreign shocks”. [...]

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 [...]

The upper house of the Swiss parliament on Wednesday voted to invalidate its 1992 application to join the European Union, backing an earlier decision by the lower house. The vote comes just a week before Britain decides whether to leave the EU in a referendum. Twenty-seven members of the upper house, the Council of States, voted to cancel Switzerland’s longstanding EU application, versus just [...]

The Pentagon announced Tuesday that 50 - not 34 - US troops sustained various levels of brain injury from Tehran’s strike on Iraqi bases earlier this month. One expert explained to Sputnik that the Trump administration’s decision to trickle out this information is just a continuation of a series of lies from the White House regarding Iran. Ben Norton, a journalist with The Grayzone and co-host [...]

Next Monday, US Navy ships will join their Ukrainian counterparts in Black Sea naval drills dubbed Sea Breeze-2016. However, some analysts are concerned that the content of the exercises could lead to devastating consequences for the entire region. The 'Black Sea Breeze-2016' drills, taking place in southern Ukraine, are set to begin on July 18. [...]

Donald Trump offered Julian Assange a pardon if he said Russia was not involved in a leak of Democratic Party emails, a court has heard. The WikiLeaks founder's barrister brought the subject up at Westminster Magistrates' Court ahead of an extradition hearing next week. Court hears Trump offered Wikileaks founder pardon Australian MPs lobby Britain to release Wikileaks founder Julian Assan [...]

'With surgical precision, North Carolina tried to eliminate voting practices disproportionately used by African-Americans.' A federal appeals court on Friday struck down North Carolina's controversial voter ID law, ruling that the 2013 law was created "with discriminatory intent." Civil rights groups hailed the decision as a major victory. [...]

The incompetence and hypocrisy of the European Union in dealing with the Covid-19 outbreak seems to have sobered up Serbia, a country that has previously slavishly committed itself to following orders from Brussels. For the past 20 years, every flavor of politician that ruled Serbia has signed on to the dogma that “the EU has no alternative” and that membership in that trans-national bloc was [...]

Pope Francis surprised reporters on a flight from Krakow to the Vatican late Sunday when he blamed the "god of money" for extremist violence in Europe and the Middle East, saying that a ruthless global economy leads disenfranchised people to violence. [...]

Earlier in the day, Russian military planes transported equipment and around 100 experts to Italy to provide the country with help amid the COVID-19 pandemic. A tenth Il-76 military plane has departed from Russia to Italy to assist in the fight against COVID-19, the Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement. [...]

It's no secret that we have trashed, poisoned, and warmed oceans at an unprecedented rate via human-caused climate change and pollution.It seems that oceans may be paying us back in kind, according to a new study that found levels of bacteria responsible for life-threatening illnesses spiking in the North Atlantic region. [...]

The US, ‘the greatest country in the world,’ just can’t admit that China succeeded in dealing with the Covid-19 threat while America has failed. Instead of learning from China, it’s suffering the world’s worst epidemic disaster. The US, ‘the greatest country in the world,’ just can’t admit that China succeeded in dealing with the Covid-19 threat while America has failed. Instead of [...]