Last week, the Trump administration imposed new economic sanctions against Iran, targeting its central bank and its sovereign wealth fund. The head of Iran’s Central Bank Abdolnaser Hemmati said Wednesday that Iran and Russia have turned to bilateral trade in national currencies as both countries fall under US sanctions. [...]

The UK government has ruled out a peaceful intervention to save historic travel agent Thomas Cook, and 9,000 jobs, but has declined to rule out (a far more expensive) military intervention in the Gulf. [...]

Now that US military aid to Kiev has been weaponized in the rapidly heating civil war in Washington itself, it would be the perfect time to confront the fact that US meddling was primarily responsible for the chaos in Ukraine. [...]

The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Nitze, armed with surface-to-air and Tomahawk cruise missiles, was redeployed off the northeast coast of Saudi Arabia, as part of the US effort to “plug the holes” in its ally’s air defenses. [...]

Chinese trade negotiators suddenly changed their plans on Friday, cancelling a visit to meet US farmers after they wrapped up trade talks in Washington this week. The Chinese delegation has changed its travel schedule heading back to China earlier than planned, according to Nicole Rolf, the Montana Farm Bureau Federation’s director of national affairs. [...]

Facebook has invoked its free speech right as a publisher, insisting its ability to smear users as extremists is protected, but its legal immunity thus far has rested on a law which protects platforms, not publishers. Which is it? Facebook has declared it has the right, as a publisher, to exercise its own free speech and bar conservative political performance artist Laura Loomer from its platform. [...]

An explosive essay calling out the lack of legitimate expertise about Iran ought to be a wake-up call for the US foreign policy field. Yet the same problem also affects Washington’s analysis of Russia, China and many other places. Imagine a field of study in which less than a third of the experts had related doctorates, half of them could not read, speak or write the language required, and just [...]

A Venezuelan official has published photos that he says are further proof of ties between the country’s self-proclaimed ‘interim president’ Juan Guaido and a drug cartel member, who allegedly helped him sneak into Colombia. In January, Guaido declared himself the rightful head of state in Venezuela and has since made several failed attempts to actually seize power in the Latin American natio [...]

American opponents of readmitting Moscow to the former G8 fail to understand the consequences. Two years ago, I asked, “Will Russia Leave the West?” The world’s largest territorial country—sprawling from its major European city St. Petersburg to its vast Far Eastern territories and long border with China—Russia cannot, of course, depart the West geographically. [...]

Democratic presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard has doubled down on her attacks on President Donald Trump’s ‘disgraceful’ allegiance to Saudi Arabia, eviscerating his ‘betrayal’ of her fellow soldiers and the US Constitution. [...]

Benny Gantz, whose centrist bloc narrowly defeated Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party in a snap election, says he is forming a government that will exclude the current prime minister – signaling the end of Bibi’s era may be near. [...]

The US and Saudis are so intent on pointing the finger at Iran for the oil facility strikes because admitting the Houthis could hurt the kingdom so badly after five years of war in Yemen means facing the war’s complete failure, an expert told Sputnik. However, if they do attack Iran, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has promised it’ll be “all-out war.” [...]

The US and Israel are discussing a mutual defense treaty that would further cement the already “tremendous” alliance between the two countries, President Donald Trump has revealed. [...]

The war drums beating in Washington, Riyadh, and Tel Aviv when it comes to Iran have not been this loud since the lead-up to the war in Iraq in 2003. [...]

With just days left before the elections in Israel, the country’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a long meeting with President Vladimir Putin at the Russian leader's Sochi residence. The main reasons behind the Israeli’s PM visit this time around are “to minimise the Iranian role in the region, put pressure on Iran to limit its logistic (financial and military) support to Palestinian [...]

The private detective, who conducted his own separate investigation into the MH17 disaster, has repeatedly stated to have new ground-breaking evidence, but has refused to present it to the Joint Investigation Team unless it agrees to make it public. [...]

Multiple Patriot launchers, Aegis destroyers and radars are guarding Saudi skies, but they failed to stop a massive strike on an oilfield because their actual properties aren’t what the US advertises, a Russian Army source says. [...]

Imagine flying a plane so high that the world looks spherical and the sky is pitch-black. The Mikoyan Mig-31 fighter is the only jet plane in the world to make it possible to fly on the very edge of space. With an incredible speed of 3,000 km/h, the Soviet-designed interceptor is the world’s fastest serving aircraft, and it can fly twice as high as a commercial flight. Traveling at more than [...]

Japanese national broadcaster NHK has calculated the potential economic loss to the country from suicides at more than $4 billion a year. The calculation is based on 23,000 suicide victims in 2015, aged from 15 to 69 years, and had they lived and worked until their 70s. [...]

Facebook has blocked RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan's account for allegedly “violating community standards.” Revealing the ban, Simonyan complained of pervasive censorship practiced on the platform. [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested Saudi Arabia should buy Russian air defense systems to protect its oil facilities from drone attacks, pointing to Iran and Turkey, who operate S-300 and S-400 missiles, respectively. [...]

The presidents of Russia, Iran and Turkey are meeting for talks centered on resolving the conflict in Syria. This is the first international public appearance of Hassan Rouhani as Iran is accused of Saudi Arabia attack by US. [...]