Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has ordered the country’s state energy company PDVSA to close some of its purchase and sale deals using the national commodity-backed digital currency ‘petro.’ The country’s oil ministry tweeted the president’s directive, which also applies to Venezuelan state-run conglomerate CVG, which is charged with economic development in the Guayana region. [...]

Costa Rica will become the first nation in the world to completely eliminate fossil fuels. In May, the country's new president, 38-year-old former journalist Carlos Alvarado announced the plan to ban fossil fuels during his inauguration speech. [...]

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) congratulated Italy’s Lega party on achieving great results in the election, expressing hope that both parties would succeed in closing the Brenner Pass on the Italian-Austrian border, a migrant route in the eastern Alps, Roman Haider, the FPO’s foreign policy spokesman, told Sputnik on Monday. [...]

Syrian state media has repeatedly reported about the coalition’s airstrikes in the area of the Syrian city of Hajin leaving dozens of civilians dead, while the US-led coalition fiercely denies conducting strikes. [...]

The recent boost in Russian agriculture has made food sales abroad much more profitable for the country than exports of military weapons, according to President Vladimir Putin. “Today, agriculture exports exceed arms sales by more than a third. $28.8 billion from agricultural sector, $15.6 billion from the defense industry," Putin told farmers in Krasnodar on Monday. [...]

The volume of trade between Russia and South Africa increased by 26 percent to almost $800 million in the first nine months of this year, according to Russian Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Dmitry Kobylkin. [...]

Those colorfully-dressed workers making sure your US short-haul domestic flight is properly packed, safely inspected and flight-ready are not paid enough, frequently requiring social services to live. Although employer American Airlines posted a shareholder-pleasing $1.9 billion profit in 2017, many of its workers are scrambling at the poverty line, selling their blood and receiving food stamps [...]

Al-Qaeda tricked the West into the War on Terror in an effort to advance its own Islamist goals in the Middle East, the group's former chemical weapons expert, who later allegedly became an MI6 spy, told RT's Going Underground. [...]

Jeremy Corbyn has demanded that Russia be given a chance to verify the nerve agent used against Sergei and Yulia Skripal. The Labour leader said that, despite recent events, the UK must maintain “robust” ties with Russia. Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s World At One program, Corbyn said: "I asked the Russians be given a sample so that they can say categorically one way or the other." [...]

The Russian defense ministry has conducted the final successful test of the Avangard hypersonic glider before its entry into service, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced. The weapon will be deployed in 2019, he added. [...]

China is the world's biggest crude consumer and buys most of its oil from Russia. However, most settlements are still in US dollars. The launch of the petro-yuan now allows Moscow and Beijing to use national currencies instead. China and Russia are actively reducing dependence on the dollar in bilateral trade. In October 2017, Beijing launched a payment system for transactions in yuan and Russian [...]

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange did nothing wrong by publishing Hillary Clinton’s campaign emails, just like the US mainstream media wasn’t punished for publishing the Pentagon Papers, ex-NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani said. [...]

The looming April 9 first day on the job for Republican superhawk John Bolton as US President Donald Trump’s hand-picked national security advisor - replacing three-star General H.R. McMaster - has the Pentagon bracing for trouble. [...]

The Central Bank of Russia has moved further away from reliance on the US dollar and has axed its share in the country’s foreign reserves to a historic low, transferring about $100 billion into euro, Japanese yen and Chinese yuan. [...]

A report by the UK House of Commons library has warned that the continued accumulation of wealth at the top will fuel growing distrust and anger over the coming decade unless action is taken to restore balance. According to the report, seen by The Guardian, if trends seen since the 2008 financial crash were to continue, then the top 1 percent will hold 64 percent of the world’s wealth by 2030. [...]

Scientists, environmental groups, doctors and citizens around the world are appealing to all governments to halt telecommunications companies’ deployment of 5G (fifth generation) wireless networks, which they call “an experiment on humanity and the environment that is defined as a crime under international law.” Research has shown that wireless radiation can cause DNA damage, neuropsychia [...]

The New York Times has overlooked vital details about the narrative that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad used chemical weapons to kill his own people, a former high-level United Nations official told Radio Sputnik Thursday, an oversight that amounts to “manipulation of public opinion” in favor of more death and destruction in war-torn Syria. [...]

TheJimmyDoreShow is a hilarious and irreverent take on news, politics and culture featuring Jimmy Dore, a professional stand up comedian, author and podcaster. With over 5 million downloads on iTunes, the show is also broadcast on KPFK stations throughout the country. It is part of the Young Turks Network-- the largest online news show in the world. AOC Blows Anderson Cooper's Mi [...]

Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon stocks have enjoyed the fruits of the Arab Spring. Since 2011, the shares of US defense contractors have soared by as much as 700 percent, according to RT's Keiser Report. American global aerospace and defense technology company Northrop Grumman has appreciated sevenfold since 2011, rising from $54.82 to $357.70 per share. [...]

Sixteen US states have filed a joint lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s use of emergency powers to requisition billions of dollars to build his border wall as an unconstitutional violation of separation of powers. [...]

The Syrian armed forces have captured several villages located to the east of the Euphrates river from the US-backed Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, the Reuters news agency reported, citing a military source. The clashes between the Syrian government military and the US-supported SDF forces took place close to the Iraqi border, in the Kurdish-controlled areas of the country, the Reuters news age [...]

The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, implemented by Russian energy corporation Gazprom, serves the interests of Germany, according to Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Soder, as quoted by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. [...]