From Aaron Swartz to Assange, Monsanto to Manning, fracking fears, Iraq carnage and more, here are RT's "Top 13 of 2013." These vastly underreported stories are some of the biggest ones to fly under the mainstream media'€™s radar this year. [...]

Former CIA agent John Kiriakou speaks out just days after he was sentenced to 30 months in prison, becoming the first CIA official to face jail time for any reason relating to the U.S. torture program. Under a plea deal, Kiriakou admitted to a single count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act by revealing the identity of a covert officer to a freelance reporter, who did not publ [...]

What sort of chapters will you write in 2014? Well the countdown is well and truly on. In less than 90 hours the year 2013 will have gone into the history books, and all of us will stand on the brink of a new dawn, the New Year will lie before each one of us. The dawning of a new year, like an open book with its pages yet blank. "We will open the book with its blank pages," [...]

This year, Great Britain's Channel 4 selected Edward Snowden to deliver an alternative holiday address to that of Queen Elizabeth this holiday season, marking his first television appearance since seeking asylum in Moscow. Snowden was chosen because of his disclosures of the many classified surveillance procedures in use by the NSA (and also, we hope, because his name has the word "snow" in it [...]

Monday 23 December marks the 100th Anniversary of the creation of the Federal Reserve System - the Central Bank of the United States of America. The mainstream media are keeping remarkably quiet about this key milestone. [...]

Here is a list of over 100 documentaries you can watch for free online. They are about Science, Consciousness, ETs, you name it. A smorgasbord of fascinating subjects to learn about. Knowledge is power, which you won't get from the betraying News Media, so turn off your TV and invest your time in watching some of the videos. [...]

Heather Long: I'd rather be able to wish people in the US a Merry Christmas this week without having to worry if they'll be offended. A colleague made a curious statement when she returned to New York recently from London, "Everything was so Christmas-y there." [...]

Edward Snowden has said he feels satisfied and a winner despite the espionage charges confronting him. Denying claims he is a traitor, Snowden said he is working to improve the NSA, something that US spy chiefs do not realize. [...]

The nuclear energy industry in Japan relies on unskilled and uneducated daily workers, and even now the country will not invite foreign experts to help with the Fukushima cleanup due to national pride, Alex Kerr, an expert on Japan, told RT. [...]

Russia continues its gold buying spree, adding 0.3 tonnes to its 996.4 tonne stockpile, marking a nine month increase, according to the IMF’s June statistics report. [...]

Germany's Bundesbank plans to store half the national gold reserves in its own vaults by 2020. It will mean the return of 700 tons of the precious metal from the US and France [...]

A review group hand-picked by United States President Barack Obama said last week that the National Security Agency needs to reform dozens of the ways it does business. One member of that panel, however, says the NSA doesn’t do enough. [...]

Oil behemoths BP and Chevron dumped toxic waste - including some radioactive material - from their drilling operations into coastal waters, claims Louisiana parish Plaquemines in a lawsuit removed to federal court Thursday. [...]

243 of the craziest videos combined into one. Amazing what some folks will do for adrenalin rush. Very cool video! [...]

It is beyond tragic that people resettling near Fukushima have to figure out how bad the contamination there is, with Japan's government allowing it to happen, Kevin Kamps, a nuclear waste specialist from the Beyond Nuclear organization, told RT. [...]

Obama'€™s Director for National Intelligence, James Clapper, has declassified new documents that reveal how the NSA was first given the green light to start collecting bulk communication data in the hunt for Al-Qaeda terrorists after 9/11. [...]

Whoa, look out!  Someone gave Roseanne 13 minutes on TV and she’s got something to say! Abby Martin interviews television legend Roseanne Barr, discussing everything from Saudi Arabia's connection to 9/11, to her VIVID porn pitch, to her next US presidential run. Demanding NSA Reform, Human Extinction by 2030, and Roseanne Barr Takes on Trolls /* */ [...]

The brain is a complicated piece of machinery scientists still full don’t understand. Each lobe of the brain serves a different function and within those lobes are sub-functions, but many researchers argue that certain types of people can be divided into halves of the brain. According to the theory of left-brain or right-brain dominance, each side of the brain controls different types of thin [...]

Think of these 9 New Year's resolutions as contributions toward mental wealth. I know resolutions are supposed to be concrete and associated with specific goals, but today I'€™d like to present some holistic resolutions that have the potential to cause a shift in everyday mentality, habits and lifestyle choices. [...]

Live performance of The Poppy Girls new charity single sung live at the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance on 9 November 2013. There is a lovely surprise just after they finish. [...]

The battle between Bitcoin users and investors on the one hand and central bankers on the other has been turning ugly. Anyone who follows the Bitcoin market closely cannot help but get dizzy. After racing from low $200 to low $1200s in less than two months, the digital currency dropped more than 35% in five days, and more than 50% from its all-time high two weeks ago. [...]

Kombucha is a fermented tea rich in probiotics and antioxidants. The fermentation process yields many potential health benefits that we discuss right here. f you’re into health food, you may have heard of kombucha. Kombucha is a lightly fermented tea which has achieved considerable popularity among the healthy eating crowd. [...]