France has carried out a massive airstrike on an Islamic State stronghold in Raqqa, Syria. It struck dozen’s of targets including a command and control center, training camp and munitions warehouse, the country’s defense ministry announced. Twelve French aircraft, including 10 fighter jets, took part in the country’s biggest air raid in Syria, the statement from the defense ministry read. [...]

The European Union is planning to switch payments to the euro for its oil purchases from Iran, eliminating US dollar transactions, a diplomatic source told RIA Novosti. Brussels has been at odds with Washington over the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, which was reached during the administration of Barack Obama. President Donald Trump has pledged to re-impose sanctions against the Islamic [...]

The reports emerge as the US-led coalition fighting Daesh* in Iraq has said that it has suspended its fight against the terror group amid increased attacks on US personnel. The Iraqi Parliament has passed a resolution to demand the termination of all the foreign troop presence in the country, Sky News Arabia broadcaster reported. [...]

About 565,000 people were homeless in the United States, according to a one-night federal survey. While this is a two percent drop from 2014, major cities like New York, Seattle and Los Angeles continue to battle rising homelessness. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development's 2015 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress found that of the 565,000 homeless counted during a point [...]

Monstrous. Frightful. Wicked. It’s strange how the words just run out in the Middle East today. Sixty Palestinians dead. In one day. Two thousand four hundred wounded, more than half by live fire. In one day. The figures are an outrage, a turning away from morality, a disgrace for any army to create. And we are supposed to believe that the Israeli army is one of “purity of arms”? [...]

In a bid to pressure the UK into barring Huawei from Britain’s 5G rollout, US officials reportedly went as far as to imply that allowing it on the market would be “madness.” The fears were dampened by the UK spy chief, however. The US has upped the rhetorical ante on its largely unfounded claims that Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei will severely compromise a country’s cyber securit [...]

The Russian-led anti-terrorist campaign in Syria has taken center stage at the Gas Exporting Countries Forum in Tehran, where President Putin met with Iranian leaders and praised their country’s role in rooting out terrorism in the region. [...]

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The newly imposed tariffs by the Trump administration on steel and aluminum imports from EU, Canada, and Mexico represent abuse of power, US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker said in a statement. "Imposing steel and aluminum tariffs on our most important trading partners is the wrong approach and represents an abuse of authority intended only for nationa [...]

The Pentagon announced Tuesday that 50 - not 34 - US troops sustained various levels of brain injury from Tehran’s strike on Iraqi bases earlier this month. One expert explained to Sputnik that the Trump administration’s decision to trickle out this information is just a continuation of a series of lies from the White House regarding Iran. Ben Norton, a journalist with The Grayzone and co-host [...]

While Britain's Prince Charles has recently blamed the Syrian crisis on global climate change, the ongoing strife prompts many questions; what lies at the root of the Syrian war and what information was contained in secret dossiers which Putin handed Western leaders at the G20, political analyst Phil Butler asks. [...]

The United States said on Friday it was examining lawsuits filed by the Marshall Islands against it and eight other nuclear-armed countries that accuse them of failing in their obligation to negotiate nuclear disarmament. The Marshall Islands filed the lawsuits on Thursday in the United States and The Hague. [...]

Donald Trump offered Julian Assange a pardon if he said Russia was not involved in a leak of Democratic Party emails, a court has heard. The WikiLeaks founder's barrister brought the subject up at Westminster Magistrates' Court ahead of an extradition hearing next week. Court hears Trump offered Wikileaks founder pardon Australian MPs lobby Britain to release Wikileaks founder Julian Assan [...]

The deployment of Russia's most advanced S-400 Triumf air defense system in Syria is "a message," Zero Hedge anonymous analyst Tyler Durden stresses, posing the question, to whom exactly is this message addressed? In the aftermath of the downing of the Russian Su-24 bomber by the Turkish F-16 fighter, Moscow has deployed Russia's most advanced S-400 Triumf air defense system in Syria and sent t [...]

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has long believed the Russian-hosted 2018 World Cup would be the best ever and his stance has not changed as the tournament unfolds. “Since [a] couple of years I was saying that this would be the best World Cup ever; today I can say it with even more conviction because I lived it and you lived it. It is the best World Cup ever,” Infantino said in the opening rem [...]

After suffering the worst stock market crash since 1987, the US Federal Reserve has announced a $1.5 trillion injection to ease strained capital markets. It is the biggest action by the Fed since the 2008 financial crisis. RT’s Boom Bust is joined by the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital Peter Schiff to find out if the Fed’s actions are enough to stop the stock market bloodbath. [...]

A gold-backed ruble and gold-backed yuan could start a 'snowball exit' from dollar F. William Engdahl notes, adding that it will diminish America's ability to use the reserve dollar role to finance Washington's perpetual overseas wars. The irony of the situation is that the central banks of China, Russia, Brazil and other countries "diametrically opposed" to US foreign policy course are forced [...]

Over a half of Russian women under 35 claim they would have romantic relations with a foreigner but almost 70 percent of them name “the ability to leave Russia” as the most attractive part of such affairs, a new poll has found. 57 percent of respondents said they are currently ready for an affair with a foreigner. The proportion is even higher for the age group between 18 and 23 years – 78 [...]

New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio believes April will be ‘a lot worse’ than March when it comes to coronavirus, and wants the US military ‘mobilized’ in response to the disease. Speaking on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press,’ De Blasio took a jab at the federal government, claiming he sees very little positive about its response to the spread of coronavirus. [...]

Turkey’s “incursion” into Iraq is a cold, calculated move. And once again, the name of the game is – what else? – Divide and Rule. Turkey sent to Iraqi Kurdistan – which is part of the state of Iraq - no less than a 400-strong battalion supported by 25 M-60A3 tanks. [...]