The self-proclaimed people'€™s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk are electing their leaders and MPs. The Kiev government has started criminal proceedings against elections in the southeast despite them being sanctioned by the Minsk peace deal. As soon as the polling stations opened at 8 am on Sunday morning, high voter activity was noted in both the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. [...]

Thousands of people demonstrated against the Greek government's austerity policies in the center of Athens on Saturday. They also called for political and economic reforms, pay rises, and other social benefits. The protesters gathered at the landmark Syntagma Square, located just outside Greek parliament, and marched through the center of the city carrying anti-EU and anti-austerity banners. [...]

A representative of the populist LDPR nationalist party claims in an official letter that the US President should be blamed for thousands of innocent people's deaths and therefore cannot keep his 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. “More and more international experts are calling Obama’s presidency dark times. The reason for that is the brutal policy that he is conducting all over the world, like Napol [...]

Former mayor of London Ken Livingstone believes that since as far back as the First World War, the United States, with Britain's help, has intervened on numerous occasions all over the Middle East just to control the flow of oil. If you follow Middle East history since this period, then the West has propped up corrupt regimes and overthrown democratically elected ones, Ken Livingstone told RT. [...]

Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst-turned-antiwar activist, shared details with RT on Friday about an incident the night before in New York City during which he was arrested for trying to enter a public event. McGovern, 75, says he had ticket to see former CIA director David Petraeus speak Thursday night at the 92nd Street Y, a “world-class cultural and community center,” according to its w [...]

NASA heavily relies on private companies for space-related travel, but recent accidents show that such firms cannot yet be fully trusted for the mission. The crashes hint at an increasing number of glitches that need to be fixed to ensure safety. Here are the top five crashes involving the aircrafts or rockets of NASA's private contractors. [...]

The EU won't provide any new funds for Ukraine to pay off its gas debt to Russia, and Moscow has no guarantees should Kiev use agreed funding elsewhere, said the EU Energy Commissioner's spokeswoman Marlene Holzner. The European Commission is allocating €760 million ($954 million) of financial aid to Ukraine earlier than scheduled to help it pay for gas deliveries, said Mrs. Holzner on Friday [...]

The beleaguered Albuquerque Police Department in New Mexico has reached a deal with the Department of Justice to overhaul many of its practices. The reforms come amid protests fueled by the department fatally shooting nearly 30 people in four years. Sweeping in scope, the reforms involve new training and recruitment procedures and field supervision of officers, and will require the department t [...]

Hope is a strange beast. Without it life becomes devoid of meaning. Without meaning, existence becomes a chore. Europe's youth lack hope, as an entire generation become victims of political ineptitude and older leaders who simply don't seem to care. Generational struggles have always existed, and angry kids decorated them. From James Dean’s red-jacketed firebrand in ‘Rebel Without a Cause� [...]

The vote taking place this weekend in Kiev-controlled territories is part of the Maidan junta's desperate quest for legitimacy. Nazis still dominate Ukrainian politics, while Kiev dreams of a military "final solution" for the east. In 2001, the Austrian economist Hans-Hermann Hoppe wrote a book titled ‘Democracy: The God that Failed’, in which he – among other things – compared the proc [...]

Senior EU officials insist that Britain must pay a €2.1 billion surcharge by December, and have the backing of France and Germany, despite Prime Minister David Cameron’s insistence that he won’t pay. Cameron stated flatly on Friday that Brussels “had another thing coming” if they thought they were going to get the €2.1 billion (US$2.7 billion) demand by the deadline. [...]

The unipolar world as we know it is moving to its end, Wolfgang Schüssel, Austria’s Chancellor in 2000-2007, told RT at the Valdai forum. Russia is to play a major role in the new order, but at the moment the Ukraine crisis dominates the country’s image. Wolfgang Schüssel: First of all, there was a story before the sanctions. We were absolutely surprised with what happened in Ukraine. [...]

Vladimir Putin lashed out at the United States and the West for destabilizing the world order of checks and balances for its own gains. He also accused the West of inflaming the situation in Ukraine and said Russia is not interested in building an empire. The Russian President delivered a fierce broadside aimed at the United States in a speech for the Valdai Club in Sochi, which is an informal [...]

Six years after the Lehman disaster, the industrialized world is suffering from Japan Syndrome. Growth is minimal, another crash may be brewing and the gulf between rich and poor continues to widen. Can the global economy reinvent itself? A new buzzword is circulating in the world's convention centers and auditoriums. It can be heard at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and at the [...]

Congressional neocons are determined to sink negotiations to constrain but not end Iran’s nuclear program – all the better to get on with bombing Iran at the heart of their agenda. They are now disguising their sabotage as a constitutional argument, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains. David Sanger’s article in the New York Times about how the Obama administration is seeking a nucle [...]

The sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and the West, among other financial blunders, are mistakes that have triggered the world to de-dollarize. Russian President Putin describes this as like "cutting down the branches, upon which they are sitting." Putin said that sanctions have an overall negative effect on the entire global community, and actually motivate countries to seek financial sove [...]

A new world record for the highest sky dive has been set by a senior Google VP who plummeted from 135,890 feet above the Earth, excelling daredevil Felix Baumgartner's record jump from the edge of space two years ago. One of Google's top executives, Vice President of Search Alan Eustace, broke the standing record by more than 8,000 feet, according to United States Parachute Association. [...]

Moscow never put Kiev's right to develop closer ties with the EU into doubt, it only wanted to escape risks that Ukraine's economic integration into the European Union might have brought about, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. “I stress this: we never questioned Ukraine’s right to develop partnership with the EU,” Lavrov told the Verdens Gang (VG) Norwegian newspaper, when he [...]

A 19-year-old mortarman has become the first US soldier to die in the fight against ISIS in Iraq, albeit from a "non-combat injury," the Pentagon acknowledged. The death of Marine Lance Corporal Sean P. Neal of Riverside, California, which occurred on Thursday in Baghdad, is under investigation, according to the Pentagon. [...]

British intelligence services, including MI5, secretly spied on a number of prominent academics with socialist leanings "for decades," including Oxbridge dons Christopher Hill and Eric Hobsbawm, secret files disclosed on Friday show. The historians were among a number academics at the UK’s top universities who were placed under rigorous surveillance by the security services after officers b [...]

The hatchet-wielding man who assaulted four New York police officers in Queens conducted a terrorist attack, New York City police said. At a briefing at New York Police Department headquarters on Friday, New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton was asked if the incident was a terrorist act. In response, he said, "I’m very comfortable this was a terrorist attack, certainly,” according to Ca [...]

Russia, the world's second-largest producer of natural gas, has launched its first auction of natural gas on Friday at the St. Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange (SPIMEX). It will be Europe's largest natural gas trading post. The project is intended to create a more competitive market for natural gas prices, which at present are more-or-less tied to oil. Now, independent producers wil [...]