The testing tools for coronavirus were delivered to 13 countries, including Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) member states Iran and North Korea, Russia’s public health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said on Saturday. The equipment manufactured in Russia can conduct over 100,000 tests for Covid-19, and has already been used to track down the first cases of the disease in Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan [...]

A Russian TV crew has managed to obtain video proof of Turkey’s increased military presence on the Syrian border, as it filmed fortifications and tanks on the frontier. The lodgments are heavily fortified by tanks and self-propelled guns, REN-TV crew reported from the scene. [...]

With over 11,000 deaths and more than 100,000 cases of Covid-19, Italy is currently a country which feels under siege. But this is no impediment to the think tank racket twisting an offer of support for its propaganda purposes. Here's what happened. The weekend before last, Vladimir Putin called Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. During the conversation, Conte asked for help, in fighting coron [...]

As the race for the White House heats up, Russian observers have noticed something different this cycle: that one of the race's leading contenders isn't anti-Russian, for a change. Political analyst Gevorg Mirzayan takes a closer look at candidates Clinton, Sanders and Trump, trying to fathom their positions on Russia.   [...]

Wearing face masks will become a “revolutionary” new norm of life the world needs to get accustomed to, just like it did when learning of cholera in the 19th century and of HIV in the 20th, a WHO coronavirus expert predicted. “Some form of facial protection, I'm sure, is going to become the norm,” not least to give people a sense of reassurance, World Health Organization (WHO) special [...]

The West’s lack of response to recent attacks on Russian diplomatic missions in Ukraine, particularly the embassy in Kiev, is a sign of “hypocrisy and duplicity,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. Amid a spate of attacks, Moscow is monitoring the situation around its embassy in Kiev and frequently communicates with the Russian ambassador and his staff [...]

First known US coronavirus deaths occurred far earlier than previously thought. Up until recently, the first COVID-19 death in the US was thought to have occurred in Washington state on Feb. 29. But autopsies have revealed two earlier coronavirus deaths in California, one on Feb. 6 and the other on Feb. 17, the AP reports. The San Francisco Chronicle calls it "a stunning discovery" that radically [...]

Controversial changes to the Polish Constitutional Tribunal brought in by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, following its election in October 2015, have been blasted as "crippling" and undermining the basic principles of democracy. A report by the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe — a separate body from the European Union founded in 1949 to protect democracy, human rights and the rule [...]

It's hard to view the US at this point as anything other than a cautionary tale. It is remarkable how the effects of Covid on the international system mirrors its impact on individuals. Its lethality, in the acute phase, may be lower than we feared, yet there is a risk of sudden catastrophic relapse after a seeming period of recovery, and the long-term effects are of a gravity we can only dread. [...]

It’s spy thriller stuff; no one is talking. But there are indications Russia would not announce a partial withdrawal from Syria right before the Geneva negotiations ramp up unless a grand bargain with Washington had been struck. Some sort of bargain is in play, of which we still don’t know the details; that's what the CIA itself is basically saying through their multiple US Think Tankland m [...]

Americans are ditching their US citizenship in droves thanks to an unbearable political atmosphere and the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, new research shows, indicating that both residents and expats are cutting ties in record numbers. More than 5,800 Americans [...]

The $500 million Russia spent on the military operation in Syria may soon pay off for the Kremlin, reports business daily Kommersant, as Moscow expects $6-7 billion worth of new arms contracts. According to the newspaper’s source, close to military exports and technical cooperation [...]

As soon as Russia’s 'Sputnik V' coronavirus vaccine arrives in Venezuela for clinical trials, it may be used to immunize around 14,400 candidates in the upcoming parliamentary election, the country’s president said on Tuesday. A batch of the world's first registered Covid-19 vaccine will arrive in the Latin American nation later this month, Nicolas Maduro stated in a televised address. He [...]

The world’s media has been pointing at one person following a massive documents leak from a Panama law firm. But that person, President Vladimir Putin, wasn’t even mentioned in the data leak. Sections of the public are not happy at the media coverage. [...]

Prime Minister Designate Mustapha Adib announced that he would be stepping down on Saturday, saying Lebanon’s political factions “failed to refuse to politicize the process of forming a government.” Adib was appointed in August, after Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigned in the turmoil following the Beirut explosion, which killed nearly 200 people. Prime Minister designate Adib’s s [...]

The oil spill that shut down a portion of the Keystone 1 pipeline in South Dakota last weekend is much bigger than initially estimated, TransCanada admitted on Thursday—almost 100 times bigger, in fact.The fossil fuel company said the "potential volume" of the spill in Freeman, discovered by a passerby on Saturday, was about 18,600 gallons, or 400 barrels. [...]

The US government’s efforts to punish truth-tellers like Chelsea Manning is in part vengeance, but the ultimate goal is to terrify, to ensure there will never be another Manning or Julian Assange. The woman who, as Bradley Manning, revealed some of the stark truths about the high crimes and misdemeanours of the US government which now persecutes her, has attempted to end her life. [...]

The reason you and I will never see the transcripts of Hillary Clinton’s speeches to Wall Street fat-cats — and the reason she’s established a nonsensical condition for their release, that being an agreement by members of another party, involved in a separate primary, to do the same — is that if she were ever to release those transcripts, it could end her candidacy for president.Please don [...]

Given the continued disruptions caused by the pandemic and uncertainty about a vaccine, it would behoove the countries of the world to dial down tensions and expand collaborations, writes Vijay Prashad. In mid-October, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its World Economic Outlook report, which offered some dizzying data. For 2020, the IMF estimates that the global Gross Domestic P [...]

Syrian moderate opposition has failed to withdraw from areas controlled by Al-Nusra Front terrorists, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, blaming the US for failing to exert influence on the opposition and questioned its claims of being moderate. Washington has itself earlier raised the issue of moderate opposition forces, who are part of the ceasefire agreement in Syria, being present [...]

The current administration actively supported the Venezuelan opposition figure, who orchestrated an unsuccessful coup attempt in 2018 and reportedly organised another one in 2019. Washington recognises Guaido as Venezuela's interim president and is pressuring the country with sanctions to force elected president, Nicolas Maduro to resign. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has stated tha [...]

The European Commission has given its support to a visa-free travel deal with Turkey after Ankara threatened to back out of a landmark migration deal. It is proposed to lift visa requirements by the end of June. The decision was confirmed by European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager on Twitter. [...]