Huawei has laid off around 70 percent of staff at its Futurewei Technologies research arm in the US. Despite recent signals that Washington was easing pressure on the Chinese tech giant, the ban is still in force. [...]

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Turkey's upcoming purchase of S-400 air defense missiles systems from Russia could trigger US secondary sanctions against Ankara, a new report on Washington’s relations with Ankara from the Turkish Heritage Organization said. [...]

Beijing has blasted US President Donald Trump’s claims that China is a “currency manipulator,” and promised to halt the import of US agricultural goods after the White House announced plans to slap 10 percent tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese imports from September. [...]

With the so-called “Western military strategy” having been a failure, Iraqi leaders are now looking to Russia in a bid to improve the country’s defenses. The Iraqi government is interested in buying the S-400 air  defense system from Russia to defend the country’s airspace, the head of the parliament’s defense and security committee, Hakim al-Zamili, has said. [...]

Washington ending the INF arms control treaty has raised fears of a new “arms race.” This time it will be about more than just missiles, with China presenting strong competition to the US and Russia, a military expert tells RT. [...]

Russia's new Sarmat ICBM, which is capable of overcoming missile defense systems, has completed tests and is a "breakthrough" for the country's missile program, President Vladimir Putin announced on March 1. Sputnik tries to find out what this missile is all about. The Sarmat heavy intercontinental ballistic missile, which Russia has been testing since last year, will replace the aging but relia [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested Saudi Arabia should buy Russian air defense systems to protect its oil facilities from drone attacks, pointing to Iran and Turkey, who operate S-300 and S-400 missiles, respectively. [...]

Globally-renown physicist Stephen Hawking passed away, leaving a breakthrough legacy behind. One of the greatest minds of our time, he taught people a lot about both space and humanity. Sputnik has collected pearls of his wisdom. [...]

Forecasting the imminent demise of European banks, an expert talks RT’s Keiser Report through last week’s repo market meltdown and what it may indicate. “The treasuries that settled last week didn’t go well on the funding market – the Fed had to step in and do a $75 billion repo facility on an overnight basis for these treasury securities,” [...]

KASSEL (Germany) (Sputnik) - Moscow was Berlin's only foreign partner that provided Germany with additional natural gas during the cold period in early March, Mario Mehren, the CEO of the Wintershall energy company, said. [...]

China has been developing Kenya’s rail service as part of the Belt and Road Initiative to connect Asia, Europe and Africa. The railway is Kenya’s largest infrastructure project since its independence. The so-called Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project was launched in 2017. Trains operating on a daily schedule between the port city of Mombasa to Nairobi have already moved up to two million [...]

The new trade war announced by US President Donald Trump is seeing some immediate and effective blowback in the form of a refusal by Beijing to lift its ban on the import of foreign garbage. Amid fears of a potentially devastating trade war between the US and China, Washington has urged Beijing not to implement the ban on US garbage and recyclable materials that Asia’s giant threatened to impose [...]

Professional journalists are losing touch with the moral code that once galvanized the profession, a new study shows. But what truth-slinger wouldn’t be having an existential crisis in an industry where facts no longer matter? Ideology, speed, and novelty have nudged veracity and honor out of the way at the ethical core of the journalist’s trade. ​ [...]

The historic launch of the long-awaited trading of Chinese crude futures this week has stirred up a heated debate among analysts as to whether the new commodity product will prosper or flop. Some market analysts expressed doubts over the success of the petro-yuan, citing Beijing’s yearning for total control over trading as one of the key reasons for a potential bust. [...]

The National Security Agency can gather the data of US citizens without a warrant - as long as it gathers this data by mistake, a court has ruled. However, this suits the agency just fine, whistleblower William Binney told RT. [...]

The current state of anti-Russia hysteria is reminiscent of earlier dark chapters of American history, including the rush to war in Iraq of the early 2000s and McCarthyism of the 1950s, Patrick Henningsen observes. If there’s one thing to be gleaned from the current atmosphere of anti-Russian hysteria in the West, it’s that the US-led sustained propaganda campaign is starting to pay dividends [...]

Earlier on Sunday, about 50 members of the UK’s Special Air Service (SAS) were sent to Iraq to help with the potential evacuation of Britons following Friday’s US drone strike which killed Qasem Soleimani, head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)’s elite Quds Force. A UK Royal Navy nuclear-powered attack submarine will be “in position to strike Iran” if the current tensions betw [...]

The EU won't support the Nord Stream 2 project as it attaches great significance to the gas pipelines going through Ukraine in context of diversification of supply routes, that's the message from the head of the European Energy Commission Dominik Ristori. Sputnik discussed this with Justin Dargin, global energy scholar at the University of Oxford. [...]

The Trump administration’s initial justification for the 3 January strike that killed Iran’s Soleimani was the threat of “imminent” attacks against American interests. That rationale proved shaky over the past two weeks, with government officials contradicting one another and even themselves. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that the assassination of Qassem Soleimani was part of [...]

As Russiagate comes to totally dominate the US political landscape, the question of America’s long history of foreign meddling has surfaced like a frog’s wart. In yet another variation on the theme of ‘Russia hacking America’s brain,’ a gaggle of American pundits appeared on Tuesday on the MSNBC news program ‘Deadline White House’ to elucidate upon a tweet by Michael McFaul, former U [...]

The Pentagon announced Tuesday that 50 - not 34 - US troops sustained various levels of brain injury from Tehran’s strike on Iraqi bases earlier this month. One expert explained to Sputnik that the Trump administration’s decision to trickle out this information is just a continuation of a series of lies from the White House regarding Iran. Ben Norton, a journalist with The Grayzone and co-host [...]

Following the US-led bombardment of Syria last week over an alleged chemical attack by Damascus, Russia says it has no reason to not supply its S-300 missile system to Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.  Moscow agreed with its international partners about 10 years ago to not deliver the S-300 to Damascus. [...]