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 [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]

The deputy spokesperson for the US Department of State Marie Harf has called restraint on the Ukrainian military's actions in the east for the first time, following a major shelling of Donetsk that left at least 70 civilians dead. “We’ve stressed the importance of showing restraint to minimize casualties among the civilian – the local population,” Harf said. [...]

It is funny that at the talks between the leaders of the Eurasian Customs Union and Ukraine the European troika will be in attendance, whereas the real policy for Kiev is being drawn up in Washington, foreign affairs analyst Srdja Trifkovic told RT. “So far Washington has been playing a game of geopolitical encirclement of Russia which cannot be in the European interest, and which in the long [...]

The U.S. government has grown strangely quiet on the accusation that it was Russia or her allies that brought down the Malaysian airliner with a buck anti-aircraft missile. The little that we have heard from U.S. intelligence is that it has no evidence that Russia was involved. Yet the war propaganda was successful in convincing the American public that it was all Russia's fault. It's hard to b [...]

With America’s government-and-media war hawks back in full flight – preparing to swoop down on Syria as well as Iraq – wiser heads might reflect on the chaos that previous adventures have caused, as Danny Schechter recalls. Sound the bugle! Get the press to march along; we are going to war. Again! Enemies R ‘Us! [...]

Beijing is calling on Washington to scale back, or cancel, aerial surveillance of the Chinese mainland, since such a practice represents a security risk and a deterrent to better bilateral relations - otherwise it is ready to take measures. Relations between China and the United States have been increasingly tense since the US shifted its foreign policy focus – together with a beefed up naval [...]

Two Spanish volunteers have joined the fight against Kiev's offensive on eastern Ukraine, speaking out against the actions of the nation's military. They say their main objective is to spread the truth about the conflict. Anhel Davilla-Rivas, 29, and Rafa Munez, 28, arrived in Donetsk two weeks ago to offer their assistance to the residents of eastern Ukraine. [...]

Russian-EU gas talks have progressed, but no solution was reached Friday over Russia and Ukraine's gas standoff. Moscow says their $100 gas discount to Kiev stands, and the EU doesn't want gas negotiations to be used to escalate the Ukraine crisis. The gas situation is ‘critical’ Russia’s Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak said after meeting with EU energy chief Gunther Oettinger in Moscow o [...]

Edward Snowden has received a residence permit in Russia, which is valid for three years, starting on August 1, the former NSA contractor's lawyer announced. “On the first of August he received a three-year residence permit,” lawyer Anatoly Kucherena told reporters. [...]

In 2016, the Russian military will start deploying two advanced weapons, the fifth-generation fighter jet PAK FA and the long-range surface-to-air missile systems S-500, chief of the Russian Air Forces said. Lieutenant General Viktor Bondarev gave an outline of his branch's modernization plans, including the build-up of Arctic infrastructure, in a radio interview with the Russian News Service s [...]

The rally in Berlin against federal surveillance gathered thousands of people under the motto "Freedom not fear," who were calling for stricter control of German intelligence agencies. The organizers said about 6,500 demonstrators, a broad coalition of pro-transparency, anti-surveillance and civil rights groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Reporters Without Borders, Digital Cou [...]

With the Obama administration already on the defensive about its threat to jail — or impose harsh fines on — New York Times reporter James Risen for refusing to reveal a confidential source, a Washington Post editorial urges the government to end all legal moves against him. The Post editorial (“The Administration Should Not Press Reporter James Risen to Reveal a Source,” August 22) quo [...]

As much as Iran, Russia, the US and the EU are involved in a sophisticated nuclear/energy ballet, Syria and Ukraine are also two key power play vectors bound to determine much of what happens next in the New Great Game in Eurasia. And both Syria and Ukraine also happen to be energy wars. The Obama administration’s Syria master plan was ‘Assad must go’; regime change would yield a US-su [...]

NATO is reportedly working towards the creation of an expeditionary force composed of 10,000 troops from seven different member states as a result of escalating tensions with Russia over the conflict in Ukraine. According to the Financial Times, the force’s creation will be spearheaded by Britain and involve contributions from Denmark, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Norway, and the Netherlands. [...]

Divided by mistrust and mutual recriminations, the Russian and Ukrainian leaders will hold rare talks on Tuesday that offer only a slim hope of progress towards ending five months of separatist war in Ukraine. Since Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko last met on June 6 in France, Ukraine has turned the tide of the conflict and largely encircled pro-Russian rebels holding out in two cities in t [...]

LANCE TAPLEY, lance.tapley at gmail.com Investigative reporter for Common Dreams, Tapley just wrote an extensive piece entitled: “The Double Identity of an ‘Anti-Semitic’ Commenter: Smearing a Progressive Website to Support Israel,” which states: “Like many other news websites, Common Dreams has been plagued by inflammatory anti-Semitic comments following its stories. [...]