On Oct. 24, 2019—45 days before the world’s first suspected case of COVID-19 was announced—a new “scorecard” was published called the Global Health Security Index. The scorecard ranked countries on how prepared they were to tackle a serious outbreak, based on a range of measures, including how quickly a country was likely to respond and how well its health care system would “treat the [...]

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and the pharmaceutical group ChemRar have started exporting the drug Avifavir against COVID-19, Belarus has already received it, and deliveries to Kazakhstan are expected to start soon, RDIF said on Thursday. "In June, the medication was delivered to 35 regions across Russia and to the Republic of Belarus. Avifavir will soon be delivered to the Re [...]

The main takeaway from Russia’s ‘national vote’ on a series of amendments to the constitution is one a lot of people won't want to hear: Most Russians want the country to plow its own furrow, regardless of what outsiders think. In the end, the margin was huge. Exit polls suggested around 70 percent of voters had said ‘yes’ to 206 amendments to their constitution, with close to 30 percent [...]

What started out as a promising year for Donald Trump was soon marred by a health and economic crisis, as well as widespread civil unrest. A French pundit believes this is similar to what happened to the Soviet Union before its collapse. Historian and columnist Nicolas Beverez has predicted that the United States will meet the fate of its erstwhile foe, the Soviet Union. [...]

Trump ally-turned-whisteblower John Bolton spent 17 months in the president's administration. Widely described as tough-nosed foreign policy hawk, Bolton insists that President Trump was acting in his personal interests and not in the best interest of the United States. John Bolton, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, offered a brutal review of his former employer's preside [...]

Huawei’s addition of the HERE WeGo map app to its app gallery shows that Donald Trump’s crackdown on the Chinese tech giant may be not that effective and could in fact inflict greater harm on American companies. When Donald Trump took aim at Huawei last year, his plan was to fire a ‘kill shot’ at the Chinese communications firm. [...]

The currency markets are currently facing “multiple cross-currents” on rising global concerns over a potential second wave of Covid-19, said Deutsche Bank’s chief Asia macro strategist Sameer Goel. According to him, the “big question” for investors right now is whether the US dollar should be trading at a safe-haven risk premium. [...]

How Much Is Really a ‘Living Wage’ in Every State? Can you afford to live where you are? The answer depends on two factors — your earnings and the cost of living in your area. The federal minimum wage in the United States is $7.25 per hour. Some states and a few cities set their minimum wages higher. The cost of living varies a great deal across the country. Even in lower-cost areas, a minim [...]

On our website you can learn more about the most important battles and heroes of the Second World War and the current interpretation of the events of that time. You'll also find interviews with historians, veteran stories, as well as historical photos and videos. [...]

Vile historical revisionism and the destruction of monuments and memory are threatening to unravel the entire international order set up by the victorious allies in World War Two, Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned. Published by the National Interest on Thursday, Putin’s text revisits some of the lesser-known historical facts to address narratives increasingly popular in the West – in [...]

In broader European terms, it may be a niche, but overland travel to Russia and Belarus has long frustrated Western tourists. It has also kept both countries off the continent’s “inter-railing” circuit. The problem was that visitors needed two separate visas to enter both states. Even then, it wasn’t legally possible, for a third-country national, to cross from Belarus into Russia by train [...]

One of the only countries in Europe not to institute strict lockdown measures amid the coronavirus crisis, Belarus has so far managed to keep virus-related fatalities impressively low. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has taken a shot at the world’s elites, accusing them of taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to put “trillions of dollars in their pockets” while the [...]

US authorities have informed the Netherlands of being unable to provide additional information about a missile fired at the Malaysian Airlines Boeing, МН17, apart from a document sent in 2014, presiding judge Hendrik Steenhuis has stated at the resumed hearings in the MH17 case. "The court asked whether classified satellite images of the missile launch, presented to Dutch special servic [...]

A Florida Senator spectacularly claimed he’s got intelligence proving China is obstructing the West’s search for a Covid-19 cure – He shouldn’t be shy to let the world see the “evidence,” Beijing’s diplomats swiftly quipped. Rick Scott, who sits on the Senate’s Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees, pulled no punches when talking China on the BBC on Sunday. Apart from bei [...]

It's hard to view the US at this point as anything other than a cautionary tale. It is remarkable how the effects of Covid on the international system mirrors its impact on individuals. Its lethality, in the acute phase, may be lower than we feared, yet there is a risk of sudden catastrophic relapse after a seeming period of recovery, and the long-term effects are of a gravity we can only dread. [...]

The National Endowment for Democracy, a soft-power group mostly known for splashing government dollars on pro-US influence campaigns overseas to enforce regime change, has endorsed protests against police brutality at home. In a statement on Friday, the NED came out in support of the protests against the police killing of unarmed black man George Floyd, which, while originally peaceful, spiralled [...]

While some in the German establishment fumed over the US presumably keeping Berlin uninformed about plans to withdraw thousands of troops, others envisioned it as a chance to loosen ties with their turbulent NATO ally. Washington didn’t bother to inform Berlin of its intent to redeploy thousands of troops from Germany to other locations, with the news coming out of the blue for the governme [...]

Facebook's decision to "warn" users about state-controlled media is an outdated propaganda trick, say international observers, asking whether US news outlets are independent and from whom. Facebook has announced that it will start labeling Russia Today, Sputnik, Iran's Press TV, China's Xinhua News and other government-funded news outlets as "state media" and will block any ads from them [...]

The murder of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police has forced the American people to take a long, hard look at their country and what it stands for. The rest of the world is looking too. It is not a pretty picture. The image of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, prompting a plaintive cry for help (“I can’t breathe”) before dyi [...]

The Australian embassy in Washington, DC will investigate an apparent assault by the US police against two Aussie journalists. The pair were roughed up live on air while covering a protest outside the White House. A crew working for the outlet 7News was targeted on Tuesday while reporting from a demonstration in the US capital against police brutality. Correspondent Amelia Brace and cameraman Tim [...]

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned the US’ European allies against using Huawei tech, insisting privacy-loving Germans shouldn’t stand for such (alleged) spying. Never mind that time the NSA wiretapped Merkel. Pompeo pleaded with European governments on Fox News on Sunday that “the right thing to do for their people” was to kick Huawei’s cheaper and arguably more advanced techn [...]

Over the past three years, authorities in Syria have seized enough terrorist weapons, ammunition, communications equipment and medical supplies to field a small army. Many of the arms were covertly delivered to the country from abroad, and paid for by powers seeking the illegal armed overthrow of Syria’s government. Local authorities found another major stock of arms and ammunition, inc [...]