Russia and China took another step away from the US dollar after the two countries agreed to develop bilateral trade using the ruble and the yuan. It was just one of the major deals reached after the presidents of the two countries, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, held talks in Moscow on Wednesday. [...]

Global political figures have welcomed the Russian military pullout from Syria, and while many have called the Kremlin’s decision “unexpected,” it is seen as clearing the way for dialogue while a truce in the five-year-old war is negotiated in Geneva. Acknowledging that five months of military campaigns have mostly succeeded in their primary objective of eliminating the immediate wider th [...]

In the West, at least, everyone has become massively aware of the extent of coercion and exploitation in sexual relations, says Slavoj Žižek. [...]

Syrians feel immense gratitude towards Russian military and Aerospace Forces with the popularity of Vladimir Putin soaring. The partial withdrawal of Russian troops from the country is a matter of concern for the Syrian community, but the faith in Moscow's help is unwavering, according to the US media. [...]

Newly surfaced cellphone footage captures the moment in which a passenger aboard a Los Angeles-bound American Airlines flight on Sunday opted to lay hands on her partner, who reportedly had wandering eyes. [...]

The recapture of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra was the single biggest defeat for ISIS since it declared its caliphate, but the West does not seem interested. Why? Because then they’d have to give some credit to Russia. Indeed, it must have been a tough weekend for Western media’s favorite Syria pundits. [...]

China rebuked Donald Trump for his Twitter-conveyed alarm over the amassment of troops near Hong Kong. The US should mind its own business and let China’s domestic affairs be, it said. [...]

The Paris and Brussels attacks are blowback from what Islamic State terrorists see as betrayal by Western benefactors who thought using jihadists could bring “regime change” in Syria, says Pakistani analyst Nauman Sadiq. France under President Nicolas Sarkozy played a lead role in fomenting the insurgency against the Gaddafi regime in Libya in 2011, and Sarkozy’s successor, Francois Holla [...]

Moscow and Tehran are holding talks on digging a ship canal from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf, said Iranian Ambassador to Russia Mehdi Sanai, speaking to students in St. Petersburg. Any canal linking the two has to go through Iran. "Yes, this issue is being discussed", said the ambassador on Thursday without specifying details, quoted by TASS. [...]

The US and Israel are discussing a mutual defense treaty that would further cement the already “tremendous” alliance between the two countries, President Donald Trump has revealed. [...]

The Austrian government is about to enforce a tougher asylum law. According to it, the government will be entitled to declare a state of emergency. If this happens, no refugee would be able to apply for asylum in Austria any longer. The opposition and other critics speak of a “de facto abolition of the right to asylum”. [...]

It’s time for the US to “get out of ridiculous endless wars,” President Donald Trump said ahead of a withdrawal of US troops from border areas in northeastern Syrian as the Turkish military prepares for an anti-Kurdish incursion. [...]

Bernie Sanders’ campaign team has slammed reports of voting irregularities at the New York state primary as “absurd” after more than 125,000 Democrats were unable to cast their ballots due to a mixture of broken voting machines, missing ballots and purged voter rolls. [...]

The yet-unconfirmed move would mark yet another blow to the framework of confidence building measures that were put in place in the immediate aftermath of the cold war. US President Donald Trump has moved to pull the United States out of the 1992 Treaty on Open Skies, one of the most comprehensive international agreements on transparency of military activities, according to the Wall Street Journal [...]

It’s late in the afternoon and we are stuck behind a school bus in Northern Croatia as we drive through the what the GPS says is the miserable little town of Apatija, which my Croatian friend Juraj says literally translates to “apathy” in Croatian.   [...]

The Paris talks on Ukraine have enabled Putin and Zelensky to meet for the first time. But they have agreed only to kick the can down the road, to agree to disagree, while seeking progress on issues other than the war in Donbass. It would be difficult to exaggerate the weakness of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s position. He is a political novice facing perhaps the most experienced and [...]

While the U.S. expands spending on wars and “regime changes” – and slashes its budget for science and infrastructure – China is making different choices, now rapidly closing the gap on scientific innovation, writes John V. Walsh. The headline reads, “The Rapid Rise of a Research Nation: China’s economic boom is mirrored by its similarly meteoric rise in high quality science.” [...]

Those who lobbied to have George W. Bush and Tony Blair tried for their role in the Iraq War have finally got their wish. Though the verdict of the court carries no legal weight, its supporters believe its symbolic value is beyond doubt. The court in Malaysia where the trial took place may not have the power to convict, but the verdict against the former British and American leaders was unanimous. [...]

As the West is sucked deeper into the Syrian conflict and starts a new Cold War with Russia, the mainstream news media has collapsed as a vehicle for reliable information, creating a danger for the world, writes Robert Parry. Does any intelligent person look at a New York Times article about Russia or Vladimir Putin these days and expect to read an objective, balanced account? [...]

It sounds almost unbelievable, but a number of US citizens are deciding to cash out of the elusive ‘American dream’ as they settle down in foreign places, such as Vietnam, where many of them were once loathed as invaders. Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia. For many Americans, those names invoke powerful memories and images of unspeakable violence, and perhaps the last places on earth to consider visitin [...]

Mikhail Gorbachev was one of the 20th century’s iconic figures. While Ukraine’s decision to blacklist him for supporting Russia’s re absorption of Crimea is ludicrous, Western media's silence is odious, if depressingly predictable.   [...]

Warsaw was liberated by Soviet forces 75 years ago today — and Polish officials have cloaked the pivotal event in myths ever since. Yet, newly-released historical documents help shed some light on the truth. Official Warsaw had no plans to celebrate this date — but it is not the first time that Poland has ignored the liberation of its state capital. Since the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in the [...]