US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has revealed a National Defense Strategy (NDS) shifting the focus from international terrorism to America’s old geopolitical rivals, Russia and China. But should these really be its priorities? [...]

The US government shut down at midnight Friday, the 18th such event in modern US history. RT takes a look at previous instances of congressional stalemate that brought the country to a standstill. A shutdown occurs when Congress can’t agree on a spending bill. It results in the temporary suspension of “non-essential” civil services. [...]

America's global approval rating has plunged to its lowest point in a decade, according to a new Gallup poll, with Germany and China ahead on the world stage. A thousand adults, aged 15 years or older across more than 130 countries, were questioned between March and November 2017. [...]

Russia has accused the US of fueling the conflict in Ukraine after the ultra-nationalist Ukrainian Azov battalion was spotted wielding American-made TOW anti-tank weaponry, according to Moscow’s envoy to the OSCE. Russia is concerned that the US is encouraging Kiev to solve the Donbass conflict with force by supplying it with “defensive” heavy weaponry. [...]

Ukraine’s President Poroshenko has praised the US and Canada for approving lethal arms supplies, while Moscow says it subverts the peace process. By including Ukraine on the list of countries approved for lethal weapons sales, Canada has become a side in a bloody civil war, undermining a shaky peace process, a senior Russian senator said, as Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko applauded the m [...]

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 [...]

Rudyard Kipling once wrote that “East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” The poet was referring to his experiences in India and Britain, but the line could increasingly apply to modern Europe. [...]

An all-female team of researchers and environmentalists board a yacht and head for the Caribbean. The 14 women come from all over the world and from a variety of backgrounds: there are marine scientists, biologists, geographers, filmmakers, artists, photographers, sailors, travellers and educators. United in their love of the ocean and the shared commitment to protect it from manmade polluti [...]

The 2015 migration crisis sparked an intense debate about the security situation in Austria, which is still acute in the country. Earlier in January, Austrian interior minister Herbert Kickl said that the government is going to tighten its asylum policy, citing the increased crime rate among asylum seekers last year as a reason for the decision. [...]

About 1.5 million refugees have arrived in Germany since 2015, prompting local authorities to allocate huge sums for migration-related issues. Speaking to Sputnik, Professor Bernd Raffelhuschen from the University of Freiburg specifically focused on the long-term costs of pensions and sickness insurance for migrants. [...]

The influential US think-tank the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has the Balkans on its conflict prevention list in its recently published 2018 survey.  However the idea, promoted by the CFR, that the US is the country that can help preserve ‘peace and stability‘ needs to be challenged – as it is the US and its closest NATO allies themselves who are actually responsible for many of the [...]

The Turkish president has called US-backed Syrian Border Force using Kurdish fighters a “terrorist army,” vowing to “drown” it before it’s complete. He also added that military preparations against Kurdish-held Afrin are ready. [...]

The current administration is afraid of competition in the international arena in a number of directions, and behaves tougher than the Obama administration, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday. "It seems to me that despite President Trump's line during the election campaign, this legacy, unfortunately, has been preserved in the actions of the current US administration, [...]

The United States is afraid of fair competition in the energy sector, and is hampering the implementation of the Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. [...]

Russia-gate is more likely turning into FBI-gate, in the aftermath of the official release of strings of unguarded text messages between Peter Strzok, second in command of counterintelligence at the CIA and his loose-lipped girlfriend, FBI lawyer Lisa Page. [...]

An appearance by the two together would be seen as a global counterbalance to Trump’s isolationist ‘America first’ political rhetoric. Following a Friday announcement that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has forged a preliminary coalition agreement with center-left Social Democrats (SPD) in Berlin, officials have noted that the leader may travel to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, br [...]

From the Archive: President Trump says his “tough” language on immigration, which reportedly included decrying “shithole” nations, didn’t apply to Haiti but he appears to know little of America’s debt to Haiti, which Robert Parry described in 2010. In 2010, when announcing emergency help for Haiti after a devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake, President Barack Obama noted America’s [...]

Sixteen-year-old Ahed Tamimi may not be what Israelis had in mind when, over many years, they criticised Palestinians for not producing a Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela. Eventually, colonised peoples bring to the fore a figure best suited to challenge the rotten values at the core of the society oppressing them. Ahed is well qualified for the task. [...]

Happy cultures are all alike. But this is not a happy culture. Sullen and sour, America seems like a country whose nerves are shot. And, after 16 straight years of war, why wouldn’t the political neurons be frayed? Each day the fear factor is being ratcheted up. New threats are being targeted. New wars being planned. A paralytic dread hangs over the Republic. [...]

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has become the wealthiest person in history and the first to outrank Microsoft’s Bill Gates on the rich list, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Gates was the only one to have made 13-figure fortune. [...]

Shares in Facebook dropped by more than 4 percent ahead of Friday's opening bell after the CEO announced changes to the platform’s centerpiece news feed, which he said would hit user engagement in the near term. The company is planning to change the filter for its news feed to prioritize what friends and family share, while reducing the amount of non-advertising content from publishers and brand [...]

Ukraine’s hryvnia has hit rock bottom, now 34 against the euro. This is the lowest point for the Ukrainian currency ever tracked. The hryvnia has also plunged to a record low against the Russian ruble, trading at 4.99 hryvnia to 10 rubles. The Ukrainian currency is on its hat-trick against the US dollar. One dollar is worth 28.44 hryvnia; the historical record was 30.01 hryvnia in February 2015. [...]