At the opening bell on Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted as much as 1,000 points in the first minutes of trading. Later it corrected to 485 points down or around three percent. The Nasdaq dropped eight percent at the start of trading, but is now down three percent. The S&P 500 had initially sunk five percent and is now down three percent. [...]

As the Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen continue and the fighting on the ground intensifies, US citizens stuck in Yemen have lashed out at Washington for ignoring their pleas for help as they try to leave the war-torn country. Aerial bombardment and street battles have become a daily reality for people in Yemen. “We hear a few bombings a day. It’s very scary right now,” Arwa Al-Iraine, a US [...]

What happens when those allies you held closest to you turn out to be working towards your demise? Worse still, what if those truths you held as certainties were no more than a web of lies weaved by politicians to sell you on their wars? We are living in strange times indeed when politicians and governments can argue supporting radicals in the name of national security and democracy. [...]

One year into the Ukrainian crisis, Washington reveals a desire to jump on the bandwagon of the Minsk peace accords - brokered by France and Germany. Not bad news, after all, but when it comes from Victoria Nuland... News that US Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Sochi to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and President Putin came as only a small surprise this week. [...]

America,s National Security Agency has spied on German chancellors and their offices for more than 10 years, a new WikiLeaks report says. The three leaked NSA intercepts indicate that the US targeted 125 phone numbers of top German officials. The National Security Agency’s (NSA) intercepts published on Wednesday show that Washington has been tapping the phones of the political offices of the [...]

The US has bought the Kiev government, trained its troops and has been sending equipment to Ukraine, said Daniel McAdams, executive director of the Ron Paul Institute.It would be naïve to assume that the US has backed off on the situation. At least one civilian has been killed in the shelling of Donetsk which is an apparent violation of the ceasefire reached under the Minsk agreement. [...]

Greece and its lenders have been gridlocked in talks over its €240-billion debt for about six months. Fears of Greece defaulting are causing a run on the banks, with people withdrawing record amounts of deposits. RT will report on the latest developments. The EU could easily give Greece debt reduction or even cancel it, Richard Wolff, Professor of Economics, University of MA, told RT. [...]

Rewriting history shatters the pillars of the world order perpetuated by the UN Charter, Russia's foreign minister said in an article published in Russian and Chinese media. The world's fate cannot be held in the hands of just one state, he added. [...]

A top NATO European commander’s exaggerated comments on the Ukrainian conflict are ‘dangerous propaganda,’ and put the West at risk of losing credibility, sources in the German Chancellor’s Office told Der Spiegel. General Philip Breedlove made [...]

California lawmakers took a step forward in protecting citizens who record or photograph the actions of police - but do not obstruct their duties - from reprisals by law enforcement, passing legislation out of committee. [...]

Paratroopers of the US 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Vincenza, Italy, have arrived in western Ukraine to provide training for Ukrainian government troops. The announcement came on US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt's twitter account. The diplomat posted pictures of the US paratroopers marching through the airport in the western Ukrainian city of Lvov. [...]

Using ground troops in Syria is out of the question, the Russian president said in an interview with Rossiya 1 TV. Russia’s air operation has been thoroughly prepared and is aimed merely at aiding the Syrian Army’s offensive, he said. “Whatever happens, we’re not going to do this [ground operation] and our Syrian friends are well aware of it,” President Vladimir Putin said in an inter [...]

To the befuddlement of Euro critics, Russian inspectors have arrived in the UK to oversee a mass NATO training exercise taking place in Scotland. Despite current tensions between the West and Russia, the team from the Russian National Nuclear Threat Reduction Center is permitted to visit the country to observe military activities as part of a reciprocal agreement contained in the 2011 version o [...]

Transparent effort to demonize sound money and gold standard. A video purportedly released by Al Hayat, said to be the Islamic State’s media center, extols the gold standard and Austrian economics. Video has been removed! The video, featuring a perfect English voice over, denounces the Federal Reserve: …as history repeated itself, one of the great forms of corruption that the earth cam [...]

Calls are increasing for the prosecution of George W. Bush administration officials tied to the CIA torture program. On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch called on Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor who would investigate the crimes detailed in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the program. On Monday, The New York Times editori [...]

The NSA is implementing a huge migration to custom-designed cloud architecture it says will revolutionize internal security and protect against further leaks by data analysts with unfettered access to classified information. Put simply, the NSA hopes to keep future Edward Snowdens out by employing a cloud file storage system it built from scratch. [...]

It's almost eighteen months since the people of Crimea voted overwhelmingly in a democratic referendum to join the Russian Federation. President Putin visited Crimea, an event that was greeted with an unexpected Western media reaction. Think back to March 2014, when the Crimean referendum took place. [...]

Trust between police and public is falling as more questionable use of lethal force and brutal treatment of suspects hits the news. Officers are also concerned over the ferocity of attacks against them. August's death toll paints a worrying picture. No US government agency tracks the number of civilians killed by the police. [...]

The US military needs to remain engaged around the world against both rival states and non-state actors, while nurturing regional allies and promoting American values, declares the Pentagon’s new National Military Strategy 2015. That the United States is “the world’s strongest nation, enjoying unique advantages in technology, energy, alliances and partnerships, and demographics,” is the [...]

Fifty-four countries were named in the Senate report into US terror activities around the world. Here are seven governments whose leaders will be having sleepless nights trying to come up with excuses to explain their actions. [...]

Exclusive: Jeb Bush’s stumbling start to his presidential bid has refocused attention on Official Washington’s favorite excuse for the illegal, aggressive and disastrous war in Iraq – that it was just a case of “bad intelligence.” But that isn’t what the real history shows, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern recalls. Presidential aspirant Jeb Bush this week may have damaged his chances [...]

The question many people ask: How come hundreds of West Europeans came to fight for the self-proclaimed republics in Eastern Ukraine? In fact, the defense of Donbass became the first major volunteer war in Europe since the Spanish Civil War. Then the internationalist brigades (briogadistas) composed of the British, French and Polish leftists, coupled with military professionals from the Soviet [...]