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. [...]

The US didn’t interfere with the rise of anti-government jihadist groups in Syria that finally degenerated into Islamic State, claims the former head of America’s Defense Intelligence Agency, backing a secret 2012 memo predicting their rise. An interview with retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), given to Al Jazeera’s Mehdi Hasan, [...]

Russia's upper house of Parliament, the Federation Council, has ratified the plan to deliver 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas to China. The deliveries are slated to begin as early as 2018. The bill hashes through the detail of exactly how the nearly 4,000 kilometer long pipeline will be built and operated. [...]

In the mind of State Department spokesman John Kirby, Russia should not back Syria against the terrorists, president Assad is to blame for ISIS, Iraq is much better off because of the US invasion, and it’s ‘absolutely astounding’ anyone would dare to disagree. That is what the press briefing at the State Department on Tuesday amounted to in a nutshell. [...]

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has rejected a campaign donation from Martin Shkreli, head of Turing Pharmaceuticals, who recently sparked a furor after increasing the price of a drug for AIDS and cancer patients by nearly 5,000 percent. Shkreli has repeatedly announced on Twitter that he plans to donate to Sanders campaign. [...]

The continuing economic pressure will never affect Moscow’s foreign policy, Vladimir Putin’s press secretary has said. “No sanctions would force Russia to make changes to the persistent line it follows in international affairs,” TASS quoted Dmitry Peskov as saying on Wednesday. [...]

The fragile state Iraq is now in is directly linked to the US-led invasion of 2003, which happened without a US Security Council mandate, Kofi Annan, who was UN Secretary General between 1997 and 2006, told RT. “You cannot disassociate the situation in Iraq today from the US intervention of 2003. [...]

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden accused Australia of undertaking mass surveillance of its citizens and passing laws on the collection of metadata that he says do not protect society from acts of terrorism. Snowden, addressing the Progress 2015 conference in Melbourne via satellite link, criticized Australia's new metadata laws, which allow the government and intelligence agencies to keep a con [...]

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has called the US president a 'lame duck.' Commenting on the recent G20 summit in Australia, Gorbachev said he was disappointed in Obama and that he 'thought better' of the American leader. "Obama is a lame duck. One must not finish the job in such a mediocre way. He just decided to throw accusations around. He will be of no avail any more, unfortunatel [...]

A British couple have been left stranded in New York City for the next three months with a £130,000 ($200,000) medical bill after their son was born 11 weeks earlier than expected. Katie Amos, 30, and her fiancée Lee Johnston, 29, were not prepared for their son Dax to be born at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan during a Christmas trip to the city. The couple had planned the trip as a last ho [...]

The chief prosecutor of Russia's Crimean Republic says Ukrainian law enforcers threatened her with prison and death for accepting the post, but failed to make her fear them. “Agents from the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office called me and threatened me, said that they would throw me in prison, that they would kill me, tear me into pieces,” Natalya Poklonskaya told TASS in an interview [...]

There are no officially registered far-right organizations in Ukraine, the security service head said. Foreign observers have repeatedly pointed out that ultra-right extremists are actively participating in Kiev's military operation in the east. “We have no information available about any kind of radical far-right parties, organizations or groups,” the head of the Central Investigation Depa [...]

Over 35,000 people from northern England have signed a petition, asking to join future independent Scotland and sever from London. It says ‘the northerners’ have more bonds with Scotland than with “the ideologies of the London-centric south.” “The deliberations in Westminster are becoming increasingly irrelevant to the north of England,” says an online petition to the UK Government [...]

Falling commodity prices have sowed the seeds of destruction for 2,600 employees of agricultural giant Monsanto. The world’s top seed supplier is cutting 12 percent of its workforce to save money in the face of profit losses. Monsanto Co.’s job cuts will coincide with a reorganization of its research and development activities. [...]

Australia's lower house of parliament has passed the first in a series of counter-terrorism amendments toughening the country's national security law. The new legislation could see journalists jailed for reporting on related matters. National Security Amendments Bill (No. 1), passed by Australia’s House of Representatives on Wednesday, says a person who discloses information relating to a spe [...]

Although some lawmakers, including Democrats, believe Congress should have a say in any potential removal of Iranian sanctions, most Americans say Congress should not keep a possible a nuclear deal from being implemented. Roughly 61 percent of Americans support the framework agreement struck between Iran and the P5+1 (the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany) earlier this month, according [...]

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier says there has been a serious breakthrough in fulfilling the Minsk peace roadmap in Ukraine. Despite any difficulties encountered, he says, the participants must press on with implementing the deal. Steinmeier was speaking at a meeting of NATO member states diplomats in Antalya, Turkey. [...]

The European Parliament has adopted a resolution recognizing Palestinian statehood in principle. A total of 498 MEPs voted in favor, while 88 were against. A parliamentary session in Strasbourg on Tuesday could not decide on the matter, opting for further negotiations, but on Wednesday the European Parliament eventually adopted a resolution that “in principle” grants the troubled region sta [...]

Burning tires, barricades of rubble and blood on the pavement - RT presents the most striking photos from last February's Maidan riots in Ukraine, which turned the capital Kiev into a warzone and led to an armed coup in the country. With police carrying batons and riot shields, and protesters metal clubs and home-made protective gear – their clashes at times looked more befitting of a medieva [...]

As a new report details the devastation wrought upon Syria by four years of rebellion, a Virginia state senator who once thanked the Syrian government for defending Christians is worried about the fate of Damascus, the Middle East and Europe. “If Damascus falls, the dreaded black and white flag of ISIS will fly” over Syria, Virginia state Senator Richard Black told RT. [...]

Parliament should not vote on military action against Islamic State (formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Syria until the Chilcot Inquiry’s report into the 2003 invasion of Iraq has been published, a senior Tory MP has warned David Cameron. David Davis MP, a vocal opponent of intervention, said the report should be published urgently in light of calls for extending airstrikes from Iraq into Syria. [...]

NATO is using the situation in Ukraine to push closer to Russia's border, according to the Russian deputy defense minister. He says the Alliance's activities have expanded considerably over the past years. In their push, Anatoly Antonov says Allied forces are ignoring diplomacy. [...]