The Russian State Duma has ratified the $100 billion BRICS bank that’ll serve as a pool of money for infrastructure projects in Russia, Brazil, India, China and South Africa, and challenge the dominance of the Western-led World Bank and the IMF. The New Development Bank is expected to start fully functioning by the end of 2015, according to the Russian Finance Ministry. [...]

Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front has issued a new threatening audio message featuring its leader warning the West "will pay the heaviest price" for its actions. The Syrian group is reportedly now joining up with the estranged Islamic State militants. The leader of Syria’s most prominent terrorist group, Abu Mohamad al-Golani, in denouncing the US-led air strike campaign, has urged Westerners ev [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law ratifying a historic treaty, committing Russia to an economic union with Belarus and Kazakhstan. The Eurasian Economic Union will come into effect in January 2015. Putin’s signature in the document puts the final dot in Russia’s ratification of the union which will be in place on January 1, 2015, as the other union states are expected to com [...]

An investigation concerning the use of federal civil forfeiture law by local law enforcement agencies across the United States has exposed problems with a routine but rarely discussed police tactic. After obtaining 43,000 reports from agencies across the United States, journalists at the Washington Post wrote over the weekend that the budgets of police departments and drug task forces are being [...]

The EU General Court has ordered that the Palestinian militant group Hamas be removed from the bloc's terror blacklist. The move comes over four years after Hamas appealed its terror designation before the EU. The European Union first banned Hamas’ military wing, the Izz a-Din al-Qassam Brigades, in 2002, though the organization’s social and political divisions were not put on the terror li [...]

Europe's largest nuclear power plant is vulnerable to "direct bombardment" in Ukraine if caught in the conflict, a Greenpeace nuclear energy expert told a German newspaper, claiming that its nuclear reactors are not protected from armor-piercing weapons. Greenpeace nuclear expert Tobias Münchmeyer revealed his concerns over the six-reactor Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant in eastern Ukraine to W [...]

Fear of extremism has led to Austria having drafted amendments to a 102-year-old law on Islam. Muslim organizations are to be banned from being financed from abroad, while the Koran is to get a unified German-language translation. The amendments have already been criticized for singling out Islam, which has so far existed in Austria on equal terms with other religions like Catholicism, Lutheran [...]

Twitter has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, so it can release more information about national security requests. The company wants to publish its full transparency report. It alleges that its First Amendment rights to free speech are being violated by rules that prevent it from disclosing the quantity of national security requests it receives. Twitter can publish the number of nati [...]

This US-engineered Coalition is in for some surprises. With few common goals, it has thrust itself into battle against the most determined players in the region and beyond. The airwaves are still heaving with spin two days after US airstrikes against Syria. Undoubtedly the attacks were timed to occur on the eve of the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations, so ‘Coalition’ p [...]

Plans to route 911 location calls via Russia's GLONASS satellite system have sparked national security concerns among some members of Congress, despite assurances that its use will be limited and it will help save lives in emergencies. [...]

The EU "sleepwalked" into the Ukrainian crisis after a failure to address Moscow's concerns over Western policies, a UK parliamentary report says. Europeans suffer from poor analytic capacity when it comes to Russia. [...]

Western nations are fond of using “democracy promotion” as a justification for interfering in other countries, including overthrowing elected leaders (as in Ukraine). But Western democracies themselves often fall short of democratic values, as John Chuckman explains. I read and heard about Hong Kong’s students putting themselves at risk demonstrating for democracy, and my first instinct w [...]

The new Greek government has spoken out against the EU partners over the statement that lays the blame for Saturday's fatal attack on the Ukrainian city of Mariupol on Russia. Hungary, Slovakia, and Austria voiced similar objections earlier. The government, headed by Prime Minister Alexis Tripras, said in a press release on Tuesday that “the aforementioned statement was released without the p [...]

Saudi Arabia has beheaded a Syrian drug trafficker, rocketing the number of this year's executions in the Kingdom to 100. This figure is already more than the 87 sentenced and put to death in the country during the whole of last year. The execution took place on Monday in the northern region of Jawf. Syrian Ismael al-Tawm smuggled "a large amount of banned amphetamine pills into the kingdom,” [...]

Iran has refused an offer from the United States to join a global alliance preparing to combat Islamic State militants, according to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei said Monday that the US offered to discuss a coordinated effort with Iran against Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS or ISIL), a common foe in the region, in the midst of an escalating campaign of violence [...]

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� [...]

Despite the predictions, the Israeli left has been soundly beaten in Tuesday's elections by its more honest "right wing", whose commitment to the total eradication of the Palestinians as any kind of political entity is openly stated. The defeat of the Zionist Union, ostensibly committed to negotiations and a two-state solution, should not, therefore, be read as the defeat of any genuine desire [...]

At a meeting with Russia's Security Council, President Vladimir Putin has said the problem of the country's 'informational space' security is of top priority, but assured the state has no intentions of limiting access to the web. "We do not intend to limit access to the web, put it under total control, make the internet more governmentalized. [...]

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. [...]

Muslim countries are able to solve their problems on their own, the Turkish president believes. He says far from offering help, the West is actually exploiting "conflicts in the Middle East" and only cares about the region's riches. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has urged Islamic countries to unite in order to solve “the biggest humanitarian and political crisis in their history,” according to AFP, [...]

Anti-Russia propaganda over Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was bad enough. Now one CNN aviation analyst is blaming Russia for the missing MH370 plane as well - and the Western press is eating it up. Malaysia Airlines MH370 vanished in March last year, shortly after departing from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing. Efforts to find the plane have turned up nothing so far, and the fate of the Boeing [...]

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. [...]