Former Congressman Ron Paul said the US knows "more than it is telling" about the Malaysian aircraft that crashed in eastern Ukraine last month, killing 298 people on board and seriously damaging US-Russian relations in the process. In an effort to inject some balance of opinion, not to mention pure sanity, into the ongoing debate over what happened to Malaysian Flight MH17, Ron Paul is convinc [...]

In an interview, former top CIA lawyer John Rizzo says the US' waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation methods" for terror suspects had "deep trouble" written all over them. But he doesn't regret his decision to approve the measures. After the terror attacks in the US on Sept. 11, 2001, John Rizzo, 66, was responsible for approving the Central Intelligence Agency's "enhanced interrogati [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli have launched the construction of the first part of Gazprom’s Power of Siberia pipeline - which will deliver 4 trillion cubic meters of gas to China over 30 years. “The new gas branch will significantly strengthen the economic cooperation with countries in the Asia-Pacific region and above all - our key partner China,� [...]

Hundreds of people have gathered in front of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry in Kiev, demanding resignation of President Petro Poroshenko and the defense minister over the poor handling of the military operation in the southeast. The demonstrators, many of whom were mothers and wives of the soldiers involved in the fighting in the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions, have blocked traffic at one of the c [...]

A massive Canadian transport plane has arrived in Kharkov carrying US$4.5 million worth of non-lethal military equipment to help Ukraine "protect its eastern border against Russian aggression." The equipment includes “helmets, ballistic eyewear, protective vests, first aid kits, tents, and sleeping bags,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement on Thursday. [...]

Russia's Security Service (FSB) has denied reports that the country's troops have crossed the border into Ukraine. Border guards have been deployed to provide security near the frontier, but they operate only on the Russian side, the FSB said. The mobile military teams “operate strictly within the territory of the Russian Federation,” a spokesperson for the FSB Border Guard Service in Rosto [...]

Europe will remain heavily reliant on Russian gas for at least until the 2020s and potentially much longer due to the lack of an alternative, according to a report from Fitch Ratings. The substitution of Russian gas is not expected, given the weak prospects for shale gas production, the lack of available imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) and the absence of significant pipeline projects in Eu [...]

With over two weeks since his disappearance in eastern Ukraine, the whereabouts of Russian photojournalist Andrey Stenin remain unknown. His colleagues suggest that he may soon be freed as part of a large exchange of captives. Stenin’s employers at Rossiya Segodnya news agency (formerly RIA Novosti), said that they have so far failed to get any information on their journalist from the Kiev au [...]

The first Eastern European EU president, Donald Tusk faces difficult times ahead – and few credentials to suggest he is up to the job... Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk will chair EU meetings as President of the European Council, with many hoping he will prove to be a pragmatic counterweight to the divisive Jean-Claude Juncker, who by his own admission held the Eurozone together with a tiss [...]

"Stunningly destructive" and "dismal failure" is how Nobel laureates describe growth in the European Union after destructive austerity policies and the euro crisis. Economists are casting doubt on the effectiveness of monetary policy in the 18-member eurozone, which is yet to fully shake off recession and produce sustained growth. [...]

Close to 200 state and local police departments in the United States have been suspended for losing military-level equipment transferred to them by the Pentagon, a new investigation found. According to the media outlet Fusion, its independent investigation into the Pentagon’s “1033 program,” which equips state and local police departments across the US with excess military equipment, turn [...]

Kiev's troops had to leave the eastern Ukrainian city of Novoazovsk to save their lives, said the country's Security and Defense Council. The authorities admitted that self-defense forces are advancing and leading a counteroffensive in the southeast. Along with Novoazovsk, Kiev troops have lost control over the villages of Amvrosiivka and Starobeshevo in the Donetsk Region of Eastern Ukraine. [...]

Iran's president has condemned as an "invasion" new sanctions on around 30 firms, banks and individuals, imposed by the US amid stalled talks on Tehran's nuclear program. Iran believes Washington's move contradicts earlier agreements. "Sanctions are an invasion of the Iranian nation. We should resist the invasion and put the invaders in their place," Iranian president Hassan Rouhani told offici [...]

Russian Parliament speaker Sergey Naryshkin has accused the US of influencing the EU into imposing sanctions on his country without knowing "the actual reasons behind the situation in Ukraine" and says Europe "will have to pay the price for this policy." The European Union recently put you on its blacklist. You are even banned from traveling to Europe. It is a pretty unique situation for the sp [...]

Kiev should make public the records of communications between the Ukrainian air traffic control and the Malaysian Airlines flight 17 in the hours before it was shot down over Ukraine’s turbulent east, Russia’s UN envoy said. The issue was among several Russia raised at a UN Security Council meeting, which was called by Russia to discuss the progress of the investigation into the tragic inci [...]

News anchor Piers Morgan's tenure with CNN officially ended on Tuesday this week, and according to a tweet sent by the British journalist, an exchange with radio host Alex Jones was among the highlights of his career there. "If I'm to be remembered for anything [at] CNN, I'd like it to be this" Morgan told his 4.23 million Twitter followers on Tuesday along with a link to a YouTube clip of his [...]

The State of Israel's ability to flout international law at will is measured in the fact it has ignored or violated 32 UN Security Council resolutions since 1982, more than any other UN member, all as a result of US vetoes. Compare this to Iraq, which under Saddam violated two UN Security Council resolutions, with the result that two wars were waged against it, along with a 13-year long period [...]

Ukraine's Cabinet has asked the country's parliament to consider dropping the country's non-aligned status and seek membership of NATO. Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk’s government submitted to the parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, a draft bill that would cancel Ukraine’s non-aligned status and revive the country’s quest to join NATO – a path ditched by ousted President Viktor Yanukovich [...]

Declassified documents reveal that in the 1950s the FBI trained Alaskan residents to become agents behind enemy lines if the Soviets invaded. No women, Eskimo, Indians or Aleuts were included, with native peoples considered unreliable. The recently declassified FBI and Air Force documents show that in the early stage of the Cold War the US government feared that the Soviet Union was planning an [...]

A couple of weeks ago the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung claimed that Germany was refusing to sign off the Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement (CETA). The simple reason being the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) regulation which I have written about here. [...]

In an interview discussing Ukraine's plans to cut off gas transit from Russia, an RT news anchor asks whether or not the August 12 vote in Kiev on sanctions against Russia will go through.From the interview:"I think, given the bellicose nature of the Prime Minister Yatsenyuk thus far and the reckless manner in which he is governing, I would certainly expect them to. Really, what Ukraine is doin [...]

A New Jersey woman who worked four jobs, who sometimes "wouldn't sleep for five days," according to a co-worker, died Monday while napping between shifts in her car on the side of the road. Maria Fernandes died in her 2001 Kia Sportage after inhaling carbon monoxide and fumes from an overturned gas container she kept in the car, according to the New York Daily News. [...]