Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is “terminating” the Visiting Forces Agreement, which provides legal immunity to US military drills, in retaliation for the US canceling the visa of a political ally and fellow drug-warrior. “The president said he is terminating the VFA,” Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told ABS-CBN News on Friday. “I asked for clarification and he said he is not [...]

The December 27 rocket attack on the K-1 Air Base in Kirkuk, northern Iraq, which killed a US civilian contractor and injured four US servicemen and two Iraqi security officers, led to a dangerous escalation of tensions between the US and Iran. Iraq’s military and intelligence community believe Daesh (ISIS),* not Iran-affiliated Iraqi Shia Muslim militia group Khaitab Hezbollah, was responsible [...]

The head of the Pentagon’s testing and evaluation department sharply criticized the F-35 program’s schedule for incremental software updates on the high-tech aircraft, calling it “high risk” as the program falls further and further behind schedule. Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II stealth aircraft is basically a giant, flying computer, and its greatest asset, according to Air Force st [...]

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hit back at threats from Washington over Moscow’s support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, insisting Caracas and its neighbors deserve the option not to be US vassal states. “I have heard the threats from Washington about punishing all those who work with Venezuela,” Lavrov confirmed during a press conference in Mexico City on Thursday. “But [...]

Israeli strikes on Damascus suburbs put a civilian aircraft in serious danger and forced it to divert to Russia’s Khmeimim airbase as the Syrian air defense was activated to repel the attack, the Russian military said. An Airbus A320 flying from Tehran to the Syrian capital was forced to make an emergency landing following an Israeli missile attack, the Russian Defense Ministry said. It added th [...]

The Syrian town has been an outpost of the Jabhat an-Nusra* terrorist group in Idlib province. It is situated at a strategic crossroads of the M4 highway connecting Latakia and Aleppo and the M5 connecting Latakia and Damascus. The Syrian army has fully regained control of the town of Saraqib in Idlib Province, according to a military source. [...]

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo won’t be winning Ukraine’s ‘friend of the year’ award. A week after he told an NPR reporter that Americans don’t care about the country, he allegedly told a Kiev audience to forget about Crimea. That’s according to Novoye Vremya (NV), an influential Ukrainian news outlet, which quotes Pompeo as saying: “Crimea is lost [for Ukraine]. World leaders und [...]

Since time immemorial, humanity has been preoccupied with one question – how to beat death, or at least prolong life. Now we can produce vital organs using 3D printers and make formidable prosthetics that are able to help people return to leading normal lives. However, some new research claims that people shouldn’t be afraid of death… [...]

Oliver Stone’s films have won 12 Academy Awards including two for Best Director, as well as a bunch of Golden Globes and BAFTAs. His new focus is documentaries – on Venezuela, Ukraine, and Edward Snowden – all reflecting on the dubious activities of the US government both at home and abroad. Oliver Stone, the award-winning American director and a relentless critic of US administrations, has [...]

President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) Mahmoud Abbas announced on Saturday that all ties between the PNA and Israel, as well as the United States, would be cut following Donald Trump’s unveiling of his long-advertised peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which many saw as being strongly biased towards the Jewish state. [...]

It may be many people’s greatest fear, but a revolutionary new study has found that dying is actually a blissful and euphoric experience that makes people not want to come back to life. People who momentarily depart their mortal coil before being revived are left with positive perceptions of what it’s like to pass away, according to a groundbreaking new study. [...]

The plan was previously rejected by the Palestinian Authority, which vowed to cut ties with Israel and the US, urging people to participate in protests against the deal. People are gathering near the US Embassy in Lebanon in Beit Aaoukar to protest against the "deal of the century" – a new peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that was recently announced by US President Donald Trump. [...]

Following the strike on two US military outposts in retaliation for the Trump-commissioned killing of General Qasem Soleimani, POTUS reported no losses, with the Pentagon eventually saying 64 service personnel sustained what he referred to as “brain injuries”. According to a spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, cited by Press TV, the alleged number of “brain injuries” suff [...]

The area where the alleged UFO was spotted nearly five decades ago was apparently used by the USSR to test experimental missiles and laser weapon systems. A recently declassified CIA report sheds light on an alleged UFO encounter that took place at the height of Cold War in Kazakhstan in 1973, back when it was part of the Soviet Union. [...]

A hospital built specifically to treat those infected with coronavirus is set to open in Wuhan, China. Astonishingly, the large medical facility was constructed in less than two weeks. The 25,000-square-meter Huoshenshan Hospital, one of two new facilities commissioned in response to the coronavirus outbreak, is scheduled to begin operations on Monday. The hospital is something of a marvel of en [...]

Moscow doubts the viability of the new peace plan for the Middle East recently unveiled by Donald Trump, as it is incompatible with UN decisions on the matter and does not sit well with the Arab world. Among other things, it cements Israel's sovereignty over the occupied West Bank; the Jewish state would also annex vast swathes of fertile Palestinian lands. Whereas the plan calls for establishing [...]

Click Here /* */ to watch the video. The Fact Checker is keeping a running list of all of President Trump's false or misleading claims, reviewing every word the president says (or tweets) to compile an exhaustive catalog of misstatements. In the course of his more than 10,000 false or misleading claims, Trump made nearly three times as many false or misleading statements in his sec [...]

The embattled USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), flagship of the new Ford class of carriers which the US Navy plans to eventually replace its Enterprise- and Nimitz-class warships with, is currently years behind schedule, and facing a slew of issues which US lawmakers have complained seem to have no “end in sight.” A new report by the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT& [...]

The famed Rothschild family’s descendants have lashed out at the Austrian capital and local authorities over what they say amounts to expropriation of severely undervalued assets, as well as public trust in the private fund which was initially set up over 100 years ago to serve people by financing medical care projects. The great-grandson of the Rothschild family’s Austrian branch has launched [...]

On 31 January, the United Kingdom became the first country to leave the European Union after more than four decades in the bloc and its preceding organizations, marking the start of a new era as well as potentially spelling the beginning of new challenges for the political and economic entity comprised of 27 remaining states. The president of France’s National Rally party, Marine Le Pen, said th [...]

The budget changes follow after London and Brussels managed to sign off on the Brexit deal and avoid a further delay, withdrawing the United Kingdom from the bloc after 47 years. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has stated that his country would veto the European Union's long-term budget plan for post-Brexit Europe, stressing it should be lowered. [...]

This week, in defiance of the Trump administration, London formally granted Chinese tech giant Huawei the right to build part of the UK’s 5G mobile internet network, albeit capping its UK market share at 35 percent and restricting involvement to “non-core” infrastructure. The US, which lobbied intensely to block Huawei, expressed disappointment. [...]