The ongoing government shutdown in the United States could soon start to negatively impact the country’s debt ceiling, ratings agency Fitch said. The US runs a record deficit and pushes overall borrowing past $22 trillion. A shutdown of about a quarter of the US government entered its 19th day on Wednesday, with lawmakers and the White House divided over President Donald Trump’s demand fo [...]

The government in Vienna is working on amendments to Austrian laws that would allow troops to be sent to other European countries to help them "protect their borders" from illegal migrants and refugees, the Austrian defense minister has said. [...]

The US president does not cease to delight online users, who closely watch his every step and wait for a chance to tear into him. Following a piece of toilet paper sticking to his shoe, numerous lapses on his Twitter account, including the almost legendary covfefe, a new mistake by Trump has let netizens cry out loud “busted”. [...]

German Minister for Foreign Affairs Sigmar Gabriel, who is in Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, says that Germany fears a new arms race in Europe. “We are concerned that a new spiral of the arms race may emerge in Europe,” he said, as cited by TASS. “It’s too early to say how and in what direction we could advance to prevent this.” [...]

Berlin must not bow to any other countries’ “dictation” on its energy policy, the head of a German trade lobby in Russia has said, as he slammed the politicization of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project. [...]

The number of Americans seeking citizenship in New Zealand jumped by 70 percent in the three months following the election of President Donald Trump from the same time period last year, according to immigration records. Since Trump’s election, 170 Americans without a family connection to New Zealand have put in applications for a grant of citizenship to the island nation, versus 100 dur [...]

Self-proclaimed Venezuelan Interim President Juan Guaido could face a significant term in prison after his return to Venezuela from Colombia, where he traveled in defiance of the travel ban imposed earlier by the Venezuelan Supreme Court, Deputy Judge of the Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal of Justice Juan Carlos Valdez told Sputnik on Tuesday. [...]

Ahead of the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community, calls within the EU for a so-called "two-speed Europe" are becoming more vocal. Sputnik Italy spoke with Italian economist Pasquale Lucio Scandizzo about who stands to benefit from such a model. [...]

Two major accidents in less than five months, which killed a total of 346 people, raised concerns about the safety of Boeing's brand-new 737 MAX aircraft. It emerged that pilots did not practice flying these planes in simulators, because the company and authorities deemed it unnecessary. [...]

The complex Obamacare system struggled to gain popularity, but now that Republicans are moving to replace it with a less generous program, many medical professionals are irate, reports Dennis J Bernstein. By Dennis J Bernstein President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan are twisting congressional arms to get enough votes to push through repeal of the Affordable Care Act and replace it with a [...]

British MPs have rejected Theresa May’s Brexit withdrawal agreement despite its separation from the rest of the deal. It’s the third humiliating defeat for the prime minister on what was supposed to be the day Britain left the EU. [...]

In a serious setback to the promise of an impending peace process in Syria the United States have hit a Syrian airbase alleged to have carried out a chemical attack on a rebel held town, without any proper investigation of the incident. Only a day before the US strike, international donors in Brussels, as well as Syrian and Western politicians and experts in London were discussing ways of� [...]

The statement follows a warning by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem that Damascus hasn't ruled out a military solution to the Golan Heights issue, which came to the fore in late March when US President Trump recognised Israel's sovereignty over the Golan. [...]

Imagine that you lead the US deep state, and you are observing the real-time flow of Western technology, industry and next-generation skills to the East with alarm. How will you reverse this trend with one master stroke and temporarily staunch the decline of Pax Americana?   [...]

A record number of Russians say they are happy, a new survey reveals, with family, good health, and a good job making them feel that way. “The level of happiness among the Russians, based on subjective impression, stands at 86 percent,” state-run pollster VTSIOM said on Thursday. [...]

The US launched a military strike on a Syrian government airbase in response to a chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians. CNN's Athena Jones details the events leading up to the decision. Trump "No living being should suffer from such a nightmare." - I don't get it - he's speaking about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, right? Evidence Debunks OPCW Claim on Syrian 'Chemic [...]

The US military’s F-35 Lightning II stealth aircraft have a problem with spare parts, and it’s keeping the planes out of the sky, according to a new report by a government watchdog. "F-35 aircraft were unable to fly nearly 30% of the May-November 2018 time period due to spare parts shortages," according to an April report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). [...]

America’s neocons are back pounding the war drums, urging President Trump to escalate U.S. military attacks inside Syria even if that means hitting Russian targets and risking a new world war, reports Robert Parry. The U.S. mainstream media’s near universal demonization of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin – along with similar hatred directed toward Ira [...]

The US government's indictment of Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange on 17 additional charges under the Espionage Act has shocked and horrified journalists who are calling it an unprecedented attack on press freedom. [...]

The book called "The Plot to Scapegoat Russia: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Putin" has been published in the United States, author Dan Kovalik told Sputnik. The book was published in June by Skyhorse Publishing. The author is a US journalist, human, labor rights lawyer and peace activist, as well as Adjunct Professor of Law at the Pitt Law faculty of the Univer [...]

Iran dismisses Washington's calls to "talk" as a waste of time since Tehran is fighting for true economic autonomy and independence from the Western-led dollar diktat, says Pye Ian, an American economic analyst and private equity executive, explaining why US efforts to confuse and scare the Islamic Republic don't work. [...]

Only when we are living in a world in which sanctions are imposed 'on' the United States rather than 'by' the United States will we know justice reigns. The decision taken by the US Congress to "punish Russia" for alleged meddling in the US elections with the maintenance of existing sanctions has been followed by a bill to weaken the ability of President Trump to "weaken sanctions on Rus [...]