Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said he will be the first person in the country to take Russia’s recently announced Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine when it arrives.“I am pleased that Russia will be the first country in the world to vaccinate its population,” Maduro said in a televised address on Sunday. [...]

Western media coverage does not accurately reflect what is happening on the Syrian battlefield, US journalist Mike Whitney wrote for the CounterPunch magazine: Damascus-led forces, assisted by Russian warplanes, have turned the tide of war and are on the way to flush Islamic radicals out of the country. Unlike America's military engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq, this process will not be a pro [...]

General Keith Alexander, ex-director of the National Security Agency, who oversaw illegal mass spying on Americans, has been appointed to Amazon’s board of directors, drawing the ire of privacy advocates, including Edward Snowden. Amazon announced that Alexander, who served as NSA director from 2005 up to his retirement in March 2014, will join the company’s board on Wednesday. “We’re [...]

Buildings are riddled with bullet holes, the sound of explosions can be heard day and night, and many residents have already packed up their belongings and fled. It sounds like war-torn Syria, but the actual location is a surprise: inside the supposedly secure borders of Turkey. [...]

26 people, comprising 19 air cadets and seven flight crew, were killed after the Antonov AN-26 military transport plane they were traveling in slammed into the ground outside an air base about 420 km east of Kiev on Friday night. One cadet survived the crash. CCTV camera footage captured the final seconds of the flight of the An-26 aircraft which crashed in Kharkiv region, eastern Ukraine [...]

Prominent US linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky has lashed out at Turkish President Recep Erdogan, who has accused him of being “dark” and having “mentality of colonialism” for signing an open letter protesting Ankara’s military op against the Kurds. [...]

Donald Trump’s rallies are renowned for their upbeat atmospheres and political bravado. Yet, the President sounded a note at his most recent event that may leave the most enthusiastic among his fans slightly worried. US President Donald Trump has proclaimed that he may “leave the country” if he loses the US election next month to his Democrat contender, Joe Biden. Trump said in t [...]

China has signed a contract to buy 24 Sukhoi Su-35 multipurpose fighter jets from Russia, becoming the first foreign buyer of the advanced warplane, according to manufacturer Rostec. The deal, estimated to be worth $2 billion, is a significant boost to Russia’s arms exports. [...]

Turkey is facing mounting pressure from its NATO allies in the Eastern Mediterranean region which makes its decision to deploy and operate the Russian-made S-400 Triumf anti-aircraft weapon system fully justified, says Ret. Major General Nejat Eslen commenting on Athens' alleged plan to acquire fifth-generation F-35 stealth jets in 2021. On 16 November, Greek weekly newspaper Proto Thema [...]

US State Department spokesperson John Kirby said that the United States encourages opposition groups in Syria to take part in ceasefire agreed on under US-Russia deal on Monday. The United States encourages opposition groups in Syria to take part in ceasefire agreed on under US-Russia deal on Monday, US State Department spokesperson John Kirby said in a press release. [...]

The sale comes amid tighter restrictions from the United States in May, which blocked the Chinese tech giant's access to software and semiconductors made with US technologies. Ren Zhengfei, founder of Huawei Technologies, said he hoped Honor would become a strong competitor in the smartphone market and even surpass his company in the future, the South China Morning Post reported on Friday [...]

Russia’s military have stopped all airstrikes on those areas and armed groups which joined the ceasefire in Syria, the General Staff has said at a briefing. "Russia has fully stopped carrying out airstrikes in the green zone - those areas and armed units that have sent us requests for a ceasefire," the chief of the main operations department of the Russian General Staff, Sergey Rudskoy, has t [...]

Touting his administration's coronavirus pandemic response, outgoing US President Donald Trump has been particularly praising the amount of COVID-19 tests performed in the United States, claiming: "we test more than anybody". Donald Trump pointed a finger at his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, stating that it "would be his fault" if the 2020 presidential election did not go [...]

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt to lead Pentagon’s Innovation Advisory Board. On Wednesday, the Defense Department announced that former Google CEO Eric Schmidt will head the Pentagon’s new Innovation Advisory Board. Consisting of 12 executives, the board will be handpicked by Schmidt [...]

Joe Biden’s effort to label Vladimir Putin as a “soulless killer” is the latest in a series of fact-free allegations that define US-Russian relations today. The real aim is to make Biden look like the strong leader he isn’t. Former President Donald Trump was fond of bragging about how tough he was when it came to Russia. “There’s never been a president as tough on Russia as I hav [...]

Foreign diplomats are expressing alarm to U.S. government officials about what they say are inflammatory and insulting public statements by Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, according to senior U.S. officials. Officials from Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia [...]

With the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing almost 3 million deaths worldwide, researchers have been scrambling to learn more about the deadly COVID-19 disease that has threatened global public health and world economies. A new study, published on preprint server bioRxiv last week, suggests that a cannabis plant compound inhibited infection with SARS-CoV-2 in human lung cells. [...]

Austria’s interior minister signaled its opposition towards a mooted but not yet finalized EU-Turkey refugee deal. The minister says she is “extremely critical” of the agreement, citing the situation with freedom of speech in Turkey. "I am extremely critical. I am seriously wondering whether we are taking ourselves and our values seriously or if we are throwing them overboard," Johanna Mi [...]

The Russian Foreign Ministry has accused the US of violating human rights both at home and abroad, noting that Washington is not only discriminating against minorities in America, but also causing problems in foreign countries. This goes against America’s self-declared image of itself as a “global leader” in the protection of rights and freedoms around the world, Moscow said. In a [...]