Earlier, President Trump accused the "Radical Democrats" of being a "Party of open borders and crime" amid the ongoing government shutdown standoff over funding for the US-Mexico border wall. [...]

Controversial Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders of the Freedom Party has published a manifesto calling for an end to accepting refugees and immigration from Islamic nations, closing all mosques and banning the Koran, as well as for the Netherlands to leave the European Union. [...]

A TSA agent has jumped off a hotel balcony inside Orlando International Airport in an apparent suicide. The incident saw panicked passengers rushing through checkpoints, causing nearly 100 flights to be cancelled. [...]

Angela Merkel's CDU party is working on a policy paper that advocates a tougher stance towards Russia. Commenting on the issue, former State Secretary of the German Ministry of Defense Willy Wimmer told Sputnik that Merkel's politics have completely moved away from the foundations that it had in the past. [...]

US State Secretary Mike Pompeo's quest to scare Hungary away from dealing with Russia and China appears to have turned sour, as Budapest said it's fed up with lectures about its foreign policy. [...]

Some are mystified by the longevity of the Red Hot Chili Peppers – 34 years old and still going strong, despite continual drug addiction issues and repeated near breakups – but those wishing to maximize their own lifespans should consider upping their daily chili pepper dosage, a US scientific study suggests. [...]

Ratings agency S&P Global said governments are continuing to run up huge debt levels and will borrow an equivalent of $7.78 trillion this year, which would be up 3.2 percent on 2018. That will come as another jump in borrowing to take the global mountain of sovereign debt to $50 trillion in 2019. [...]

Russia, Iran and Turkey have announced they will establish a trilateral mechanism to support the ceasefire in Syria. In a joint statement issued at the end of talks in Astana, they said the Syrian opposition should take part in Geneva peace talks on the issue. [...]

Following the defeat of the UK government over its Brexit deal on Tuesday and ahead of the decision on a no-deal exit on Wednesday, the EU27 hold a unanimous view, according to the Austrian Chancellor. [...]

The video shows a passenger train making its first journey through the city of Aleppo for the first time in four and a half years. The war had left the railway service disrupted. However, as the city is returning to normal life, the train carried its first passengers through the newly liberated Aleppo. [...]

Italy’s endorsement of China’s global integration model – the Belt and Road Initiative – has caused ructions in the transatlantic alliance and also between members of the European Union delineating the bloc’s North-South divide. [...]

US President Donald Trump received the lowest approval rating — and highest disapproval rating — for a new president in recent history, according to a survey released Friday. The poll, from CNN, showed that a 53% majority said they disapprove of the way Trump is handling his job two weeks into office [...]

Saudi King Salman said he “absolutely rejects” any steps that would undermine Syrian sovereignty over the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, after US President Donald Trump recognized the area as Israeli territory. [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law on the ratification of the agreement with Ankara on the Turkish Stream gas pipeline. The lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, ratified the agreement on January 20, while the upper house, the Federation Council, ratified the document on February 1. [...]

The fact that German investments in Russia hit a ten-year record high in 2018 shows that the pressure Washington has exerted on Europe failed to discourage German businesses from returning to the Russian market, analysts believe. [...]

As Democrats compete to become the new War Party – pushing for a dangerous confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia – some constituents are objecting, as Mike Madden did in a letter to Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Dear Senator Klobuchar, I write with concern over statements you have made recently regarding Russia. These statements have been made both at home and abroad, and they involve two issues; t [...]

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido failed to kick-start a military uprising on Tuesday. After this fizzle, his life may be in danger from his own CIA backers, the director of the Ron Paul Institute argued in a debate. [...]

People living in the United States have entered into one of the most dangerous periods of the 21st century. Donald Trump, the president, is not only a twisted caricature of every variation of economic, political, educational, and social fundamentalism, he is the apogee of an increasingly intolerant and authoritarian culture committed to destroying free speech, civil rights, women’s reproductive [...]

Georgetown researchers are warning Americans about a sophisticated real-time face surveillance system that’s about to become an “imminent reality” for millions of citizens across the country. [...]

The Wall Street Journal has dialed up the paranoia over former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn's so-called 'Russia ties' over his failure to disclose an 'interaction' he had with a Russian-British national at a security conference in 2014. But as social media users, including a Russian senator, point out, WSJ's case is extremely weak. [...]

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu beamed as he showed off a new, Donald Trump-signed US State Department map which redraws Israel’s border to include the Golan Heights – an occupied territory annexed from Syria. [...]

Wheelchair-bound Russian singer Yulia Samoylova said she can’t comprehend what scared the Ukrainian authorities so much that they slapped her with a three-year ban. Samoylova said she still hopes to perform at Eurovision in Kiev. [...]