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 [...]

General Qassem Soleimani was one of the most responsible for defeating Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, and his killing is a “great tragedy” that could result in a “vast war” with Iran, a Virginia senator and Marine veteran told RT. In a statement to RT on Friday, retired Virginia Senator Richard Black said that the assassination “may presage a new war of aggression—this time, against the [...]

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. [...]

US President Donald Trump has lashed out against the “fake news media” and their “Democrat partners” over criticism of his administration’s decision to assassinate Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. The president claimed in tweets marred with misspellings that it does not matter if Soleimani presented an imminent threat to the US, something he had said previously to defend the assassinati [...]

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. [...]

The gloves came off this week in the United States as Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard announced she would sue Hillary Clinton for suggesting she was a 'Russian asset.' Clinton’s conspiracy theory that Gabbard was in the employ of the Russians went something like this: somewhere deep behind the walls of the Kremlin, the Russians, trembling at the prospect of having to play 4D ches [...]

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. [...]

The head of the Pentagon’s testing and evaluation department sharply criticized the F-35 program’s schedule for incremental software updates on the high-tech aircraft, calling it “high risk” as the program falls further and further behind schedule. Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II stealth aircraft is basically a giant, flying computer, and its greatest asset, according to Air Force st [...]

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. [...]

Caught off guard by the EU’s ban on medical exports, Serbia found help in China as it struggled to prepare for the Covid-19 outbreak, the Serbian president said, adding that it has become clear that European solidarity is a myth. Serbia is the latest country to impose severe restrictions on travel and public gatherings in response to the global epidemic. [...]

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 [...]

Iran’s New Year celebration of Nowruz finds it weathering a perfect storm of US sanctions, low oil prices and Covid-19. The resulting humanitarian crisis may make it even more resilient, as Iranians rally around their government. Iran is facing an existential crisis, brought on by a combination of economic, political and social emergencies which, when combined, threaten to bring the nation to it [...]

On the heels of Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran deal, France’s economy minister has urged Europe to stop acting like “US vassals” and continue trading with Tehran in defiance of what “the global economic policeman” has in store. “Do we want to be vassals who obey decisions taken by the United States while clinging to the hem of their trousers?” Bruno le Maire asked in an emotional [...]

As the COVID-19 outbreak onboard the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt gets worse, its captain has penned a pleading letter to the Navy for enough resources to isolate his entire crew. “Request all available resources to find NAVADMIN [Navy Personnel Command] and CDC [US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] compliant quarantine rooms for my entire crew as soon as possible,� [...]

Jared Kushner’s speech at the US Embassy opening ceremony in Jerusalem claims both sides of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal could gain more than they give, as Israeli forces shot dead 55 protesters on Monday. Kushner, whom President Donald Trump tasked with bringing peace to the Middle East, said the US administration had almost completed a peace plan, but is undecided about when to reveal its [...]

Fresh market data shows that Brent as well as WTI prices briefly rebounded by 1-3 percent in the hours after the OPEC+ talks on Sunday, but then showed a downward trend, which a top Wall Street bank says is likely to continue in the coming weeks. Goldman Sachs has forecast that oil prices will continue to fall in the weeks to come, arguing that a “historic yet insufficient” OPEC+ deal [...]

Russia has deployed its fleet of strategic bombers to double the volume of airstrikes on Islamist targets in Syria, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has announced. Vladimir Putin has ordered a cruiser to coordinate operations with French naval forces in the Mediterranean. [...]

The British Government has allocated hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. This is what Peter Hitchens, the Sunday Mail’s journalist, revealed in his Twitter on Sunday. Hitchens raised questions about the group's independence, given that the organization defines itself as not affiliated to any political body. [...]

China has faced numerous accusations over its handling of the initial COVID-19 outbreak from US officials, including President Donald Trump who claims that the virus escaped from a Chinese laboratory and that Beijing was hiding the true information about the state of the outbreak in its early stages. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has vehemently denied a report by the German magazine Der Spie [...]

Russia’s stance on Syria changed after it was directly attacked by ISIL, according to France’s Defense Minister. According to French Defense Minister Jean Yves Le Drian, Russian Aerospace Forces aircraft have been launching significant strikes against the Islamic State positions in Syria. [...]

The United Kingdom and the European Union face a critical choice about the direction of future trade policies with the rest of the world. Should the EU deepen its already heavy exposure to the US even as the country turns inward, or should it begin to diversify its trade relations toward a less familiar albeit increasingly prosperous China? [...]

One of the only countries in Europe not to institute strict lockdown measures amid the coronavirus crisis, Belarus has so far managed to keep virus-related fatalities impressively low. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has taken a shot at the world’s elites, accusing them of taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to put “trillions of dollars in their pockets” while the [...]