The Turkish Stream pipeline will become operational in December 2016, said head of Gazprom Aleksey Miller. "An agreement [between Russia and Turkey] has been reached on operational commissioning and the start of gas deliveries via Turkish Stream in December 2016,” said Miller, according to a statement released by Gazprom. [...]

Mikhail Gorbachev has said that western government officials who refused to attend the Victory Day celebrations in Moscow were showing disrespect to nations that had defeated Nazism and to all the people who perished in this fight. Ignoring the opportunity to demonstrate one’s attitude towards the war against Nazism is also disrespectful to the boundless courage shown by all people who fought [...]

A new audit by the US Department of Defense has reportedly revealed that Pentagon employees have been using their government credit cards to gamble and pay for other adult activities, including escort services. The 'Government Travel Charge Transactions' audit, conducted by the Office of the Inspector General, found that civilian and military employees have been using their cards at casinos and [...]

As little as 13 percent of Europeans think the Soviet Army played the leading role in liberating Europe from Nazism during WW2, a recent poll targeting over 3,000 people in France, Germany and the UK reveals. The majority of respondents – 43 percent – said the US Army played the main role in liberating Europe. The survey, carried out from March 20 to April 9, 2015, was conducted by the Brit [...]

Today marks 15 years since Russian President Vladimir Putin's first inauguration. RT looks back at his years as president and all the important benchmarks on the way. After former Russian leader Boris Yeltsin resigned back on December 31, 1999, his Prime Minister Vladimir Putin took over the reins, inheriting a country in a dire economic situation and struggling with lawlessness. [...]

The collection of telephone metadata by US intelligence services "exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized," a federal appeals court has ruled in a major blow to the National Security Agency. On Thursday, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said the American Civil Liberties Union can sue the director of national intelligence over the NSA’s bulk collection program, reversin [...]

From Afghanistan to Yemen we are told we must fight terrorism over there to keep us safe here at home. The historical record tells us a very different story. Washington’s so-called war on terror has only created and motivated more violent extremists and destroyed states. As a result of failed wars, terrorism flourishes around the world. CrossTalking with Phyllis Bennis, Bruce Fein, and James [...]

The cost of flying a MiG fighter in Russia, buying kidneys in Iran, prostitutes in Ukraine and rhinoplasty in S. Korea are just a few of the most popular Google requests worldwide, a new map shows. It does give some weird insights into the countries. [...]

America is the worst developed country in the world to be a mother, ranking 61st globally in maternal health, a groundbreaking analysis of global health inequalities has found. A woman in the United States is more than 10 times as likely as a woman in Austria, Belarus or Poland to die from a pregnancy-related cause, according to a comprehensive report, State of the World's Mothers 2015, publish [...]

The question many people ask: How come hundreds of West Europeans came to fight for the self-proclaimed republics in Eastern Ukraine? In fact, the defense of Donbass became the first major volunteer war in Europe since the Spanish Civil War. Then the internationalist brigades (briogadistas) composed of the British, French and Polish leftists, coupled with military professionals from the Soviet [...]

The Saudi Arabia-led coalition is using US-supplied cluster munitions in its airstrikes on Houthi forces in Yemen, Human Rights Watch reported. Targets include those close to villages, posing a threat from undetonated sub munitions to civilians. In recent weeks the coalition has used cluster bombs in Yemen’s northern Saada governorate, a region bordering Saudi Ararbia, which is historically c [...]

This is a fascinating story with implications for every American… Dr. Ron Paul–the former U.S. Presidential candidate and 22-year Congressional veteran–was briefly back in Washington, D.C., recently. Dr. Paul was in the nation’s capital to educate Americans on what he believes our country’s next financial crisis will look like. He says America is on the verge of a real “currency [...]

Thousands of people in Ukraine, Russia and around the world took to the streets to mark the first anniversary of the Odessa massacre. Last year, 48 activists were killed and over 200 injured as radicals set the local trade unions house on fire. The commemoration ceremonies for those who died in the fire on May 2, 2014 proceeded without serious incident in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa. & [...]

US-led airstrikes have killed 52 Syrian civilians in one day, a monitoring group reports. There was fighting in the vicinity, but the strike allegedly failed to kill even a single Islamist fighter. "Airstrikes by the coalition early on Friday on the village of Birmahle in Aleppo province killed 52 civilians," the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. [...]

Moscow may team up with Beijing to create a scientific station on the Moon. The challenge for Russia is to build its own space station by 2024 to achieve its lunar exploration goals. According to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who supervises defense-related policies, the question on "bringing China in as the main partner in creating a lunar scientific station," is currently being [...]

Ukraine has the fastest falling economy of 2015 according to the British periodical The Economist. The country has seen its GDP shrink by 6.5 percent since last April, with countries like Libya and Macau performing better. The Ukrainian economy showed the most significant deepening recession compared to the rest of the world, according to the data, published on Wednesday by the head of the anal [...]

More than 5 million hens will be euthanized at an Iowa egg-laying facility after the majority of them were found to be contaminated with a lethal strain of avian influenza, or bird flu. It is the worst outbreak yet to be recorded in the US. This is the second time a bird flu epidemic has been reported in Iowa, which provides almost 20 percent of all eggs that are consumed in the United States. [...]

Despite US policy banning federal officials from doing business with kidnappers, particularly terrorists, a government source told the Associated Press the FBI has for years negotiated and paid ransoms to kidnappers both domestically and internationally. The government source said the FBI used a secret exemption begun under the Bush Administration which allowed the bureau to use money to engage [...]

European aviation consortium Airbus said it would file criminal charges over industrial espionage, following reports that US and German foreign intelligence spied on the industry giant. "We are aware that as a large company in the sector, we are a target and subject of espionage," the company said in a statement to AFP on Thursday. [...]

Russian President Putin did not agree to a possible deployment of peacekeepers in eastern Ukraine, his spokesman said in response to Kiev's claims to the contrary. Moscow insists that all points of the Minsk agreement are fulfilled first. The peacekeeper initiative was discussed on Thursday in a phone conversation between the so-called Normandy Four - the leaders of France, Germany Russia and U [...]

Russia is to renew production of the Tu-160 "Blackjack" supersonic strategic bomber and missile carrier, according to defense minister, Sergey Shoigu. “Today it is already necessary to solve the task of not only maintaining and modernizing long-range aviation, we must also produce the Tu-160 missile carrier,” Shoigu said during a visit to the Kazan Aviation Plant, as cited by Sputnik news a [...]

The Russian and Chinese Navies are to hold a joint exercise in the Mediterranean Sea in mid-May, a first in that part of the world. A total of nine warships from the two countries are to participate, Beijing said. "The aim is to deepen both countries' friendly and practical cooperation, and increase our navies' ability to jointly deal with maritime security threats," [...]