Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has called the US president a 'lame duck.' Commenting on the recent G20 summit in Australia, Gorbachev said he was disappointed in Obama and that he 'thought better' of the American leader. "Obama is a lame duck. One must not finish the job in such a mediocre way. He just decided to throw accusations around. He will be of no avail any more, unfortunatel [...]

Twenty-five years after that embodiment of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, was torn down by ecstatic Germans, the world observes the anniversary as it rushes headlong towards a new confrontation. As the celebration unfolds in Berlin to rejoice in a unified country – and to some extent a unified world – some of the people who shaped the events two-and-a-half decades ago approach the date in a [...]

Israel has said it's shutting the only two operating Gaza border crossings indefinitely. This comes a day after a projectile hit Israel from the strip, but caused no damage. Border closures threaten to isolate already devastated Gaza completely. The move will affect both the Kerem Shalom and Erez border crossings, Haartez reported, quoting Israel’s defense establishment. [...]

The self-proclaimed people'€™s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk are electing their leaders and MPs. The Kiev government has started criminal proceedings against elections in the southeast despite them being sanctioned by the Minsk peace deal. As soon as the polling stations opened at 8 am on Sunday morning, high voter activity was noted in both the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. [...]

The vote taking place this weekend in Kiev-controlled territories is part of the Maidan junta's desperate quest for legitimacy. Nazis still dominate Ukrainian politics, while Kiev dreams of a military "final solution" for the east. In 2001, the Austrian economist Hans-Hermann Hoppe wrote a book titled ‘Democracy: The God that Failed’, in which he – among other things – compared the proc [...]

The unipolar world as we know it is moving to its end, Wolfgang Schüssel, Austria’s Chancellor in 2000-2007, told RT at the Valdai forum. Russia is to play a major role in the new order, but at the moment the Ukraine crisis dominates the country’s image. Wolfgang Schüssel: First of all, there was a story before the sanctions. We were absolutely surprised with what happened in Ukraine. [...]

Moscow never put Kiev's right to develop closer ties with the EU into doubt, it only wanted to escape risks that Ukraine's economic integration into the European Union might have brought about, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. “I stress this: we never questioned Ukraine’s right to develop partnership with the EU,” Lavrov told the Verdens Gang (VG) Norwegian newspaper, when he [...]

Saudi Arabia has unleashed an economic war against selected oil producers. The strategy masks the House of Saud,s real agenda. But will it work? Rosneft Vice President MikhailLeontyev; “Prices can be manipulative…Saudi Arabia has begun making big discounts on oil. This is political manipulation, and Saudi Arabia is being manipulated, which could end badly.” [...]

Trying to isolate Russia with sanctions and restrictive measures is "an absurd and illusory goal," Russia's president has said. Moscow intends to "further deepen" cooperation with EU partners, Vladimir Putin told the Serbian newspaper, Politika. “If the main goal is to isolate our country, it’s an absurd and illusory goal. It is obviously impossible to achieve it and the economic health of [...]

Since 3 October the Russian Embassy in the UK has been waiting for a positive response from the Financial Times on publishing a letter from Ambassador Yakovenko's as part of the debate on Ukraine. We have only heard that it is under consideration. So, we have decided to publish the text of this letter on our website for the British public to see for themselves that there is nothing subversive, [...]

Haunting images taken at the shelled Donetsk airport recall the nuclear ghost towns of Chernobyl and Pripyat. After half a year of fighting in eastern Ukraine, the once regional airline hub has now been abandoned and left in ruins. [...]

The recent Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights activist Kailash Satyarthi has condemned the violence against children in Ukraine urging Kiev to act against it amid the ongoing crisis. “It is the responsibility of the Ukrainian government to save their citizens particularly children. [...]

Ukrainian Security Service seeks to reach the crash site of the Malaysian MH17 flight to fabricate at least some evidence which will allow Kiev to conceal the true causes of the catastrophe from the world, said Russia's Defense ministry. “One cannot but feel angry about yet another attempt by the Ukrainian security service chief to use absolutely groundless allegations in a bid to persuade th [...]

Kiev doesn't have full control of its military and paramilitary forces, who continue to violate the principles of international humanitarian law, highlights the latest UN report on the human rights situation in Ukraine. The UN has stated that at least 3,660 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine since April – including 330 since the ceasefire brokered on Sept. 5. [...]

As the mainstream Western press keeps lamenting Belarus's rising influence, very few commentators dare to explain why "the last dictatorship in Europe" became the only possible venue for peace talks between the warring Ukrainian parties. The explanation is not quite flattering for the countries of the EU: it turned out that they all were biased in their attitude to the conflict in Ukraine, all [...]

Three class-action lawsuits filed Friday claim that agribusiness power Syngenta is to blame for depressed corn exports to China since the seed company released a genetically-engineered variant of the crop before it was approved by Beijing. At issue is Syngenta’s 2009 release and distribution of its MIR162 genetically-modified corn known as Agrisure Viptera, which is engineered to fend off cer [...]

ISIS militants trained by US Special Forces have been used as a lever to create disorder and organize a Sharia state along the lines of an Islamic caliphate to the advantage of the US military, geopolitical analyst William Engdahl told RT. The US military has, in one way or another, been involved in the Middle East region for over a decade. Why has the violence lasted so long? [...]

Vice President Joe Biden, by blaming Washington's allies for the spread of IS in Iraq and Syria, attempted to distance the US from the mess that is emerging in the Middle East, former MI5 agent Annie Machon told RT. Addressing students at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University, Joe Biden accused Turkey and the Gulf States of being unscrupulous in their [...]

At the Autumn Meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (PA), Russian official Sergey Naryshkin made the Ukrainian crisis a top European security issue, while speaking at a conference on new security challenges in the region. At a meeting on "New Security Challenges: The Role of Parliaments" on Friday, Naryshkin, the Head of the Lower House of Russian Parliament, who leads the Moscow delegatio [...]

America's leadership had to embarrass Europe to impose economic hits on Russia over the crisis in Ukraine - even though the EU was opposed to such a motion, US Vice President Joe Biden revealed during a speech at Harvard. “We’ve given Putin a simple choice: Respect Ukraine’s sovereignty or face increasing consequences,” Biden told a gathering at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at Harvard [...]

Islamic State has been a key foreign policy instrument for the US and a number of its allies and become one of the main drivers of the rebellion in Syria, Charles Shoebridge, security analyst and former British army officer, told RT. The US has one of the most powerful intelligence services in the world, but reports suggest it's not robust enough to target jihadists and safeguard civilians. How [...]

Washington harshly criticized Israel's decision to move forward with new settlements in east Jerusalem on Wednesday, adding that the plan could alienate Tel Aviv from "even its closest allies." US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the development – which calls for more than 2,600 new homes in a highly contested area of east Jerusalem – would make world nations “question Israel� [...]