Polish closure of its airspace for the plane of the Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu will not go without an "appropriate response" as it caused a "real threat to flight safety," Russia's Foreign Ministry has stated. The diplomatic standoff on Friday took hours [...]

As one of the preconditions to authorizing close to $300 million in aid, the United States is pressuring El Salvador to purchase genetically modified seeds from Monsanto instead of non-GM seeds from local farmers. According to Sustainable Pulse, a website covering developments related to genetically modified organisms and sustainable agriculture, the US will reportedly withhold $277 million in [...]

Some 400 people have joined a protest camp in Newport to protest against NATO. The march comes ahead of next week's military summit that will see 60 world leaders descend on the area and is already causing considerable disruption to locals. "Nuclear NATO - no, thanks!" or "Iraq, Ukraine - no more wars" read the numerous placards as about 400 protesters took in a march on Saturday against the up [...]

Microsoft has been told it must handover emails stored abroad to US prosecutors by a New York court. However, the software giant says it will fight the ruling, saying that an email deserves the same privacy protection as a paper letter sent by mail. The company says they will not release any emails to US authorities, while it appeals the ruling, made by Chief Judge Loretta Preska of the US Dist [...]

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. [...]

European volunteers are streaming into Ukraine to join the fighting on both sides. While Kiev's forces are beefed up with mercenaries from private military companies, Europeans have also come to defend the rebel Donbass region of their own free will. One of the latest reinforcements of anti-Kiev troops in Eastern Ukraine are four French ex-serviceman who have come to fight this war, thousands o [...]

The Ukrainian crisis has two closely intertwined dimensions: a domestic one and an external one, both testifying to the failure to manage the process correctly. Both provide abundant material for a study in abject mismanagement, with the lessons of European history consigned to oblivion. [...]

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 [...]

Russia's only reaction to NATO accusations of interfering militarily in Ukraine will be a consistent position of putting an end to bloodshed and establish dialogue between warring parties in Ukraine, Russia's FM said. No facts about Russian military being present on the territory of Ukraine have ever been presented, Sergey Lavrov pointed out, while speculation on the issue has been voiced repea [...]

At a UN Security Council meeting, Russia demanded the international community to stop speculation about the MH17 flight, unless someone is willing to contribute info important to investigation, such as air traffic controller's records concealed by Kiev. Ukraine has proposed to await the outcome of the preliminary investigation into the of the Malaysian Boeing that was shot down on 17 July 2014, [...]

At least 2,593 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine since the start of the Kiev's military operation against anti-government forces there started in mid-April, according to a new estimate by the Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights. The death toll includes civilians, members of the Ukrainian troops and also fighters in the anti-government forces. [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has compared the shelling of east Ukrainian towns and cities by Kiev's troops to actions carried out by the Nazis during World War II. “Sad as it might seem, this reminds me of the events of World War II, when the German Nazi occupants surrounded our cities, like Leningrad, and directly shelled those cities and their inhabitants,” Putin said on Friday, speak [...]

The NATO chief wants member states to agree to increase their defense spending at next week's summit. But Canada is determined to block the move, Reuters reports, citing anonymous sources familiar with negotiations on the issue. NATO would like to see its member states commit to raising their defense spending to 2 percent of GDP over the next 10 years. In 2013, only four countries - the US, Bri [...]

President Putin has called on the self-defense militias in Ukraine to provide Kiev's military units blocked in the east of the country with a safe humanitarian corridor to cross into Russia. “It is clear the militia has achieved a major success in intercepting Kiev’s military operation, which represents a grave danger to the population of Donbass and which has already led to the loss of man [...]

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. [...]

Kiev authorities have opened over 1,000 investigations into Ukrainian soldiers who deserted from the army. Protests of soldiers’ mothers and wives who don’t want them to fight have become frequent as troops say they have been abandoned by the government. On Wednesday, the Ukrainian General Prosecutor’s office announced that 1,083 criminal proceeding of desertion had been launched since th [...]

Hundreds of people have gathered in front of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry in Kiev, demanding resignation of President Petro Poroshenko and the defense minister over the poor handling of the military operation in the southeast. The demonstrators, many of whom were mothers and wives of the soldiers involved in the fighting in the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions, have blocked traffic at one of the c [...]

Palestine will ask the UN Security Council to set a "timetable" for Israel's withdrawal from the occupied territories, a senior official said. If the request is denied, Palestine will take senior Israeli officials to the ICC over the killing of thousands. The Palestinian leadership is going to submit the application to the UN Security Council on September 15, Ma'an News Agency reported, citin [...]

Russian and Ukrainian leaders have concluded their first official face-to-face meeting in Minsk during which they discussed Ukraine's Association Agreement with EU and the crisis and humanitarian disaster in the east of the country. Russia will do everything to facilitate a peace process in Ukraine, President Putin told the press following the 2-hour talks, which he described as “positive.” [...]

Two churches in the Donetsk Region have been destroyed by shelling from Kiev troops, leaving three people dead. In the latest attack Monday, a church was completely destroyed, while on Saturday three worshipers were killed while praying. In Monday’s attack on St. John Kronstadt Orthodox Church on the outskirts of Donetsk, the shelling “caused a fire, and the church was totally burned with i [...]

The US Senator from Kentucky has warned that if Hillary Clinton, the former US Secretary of State, becomes the next American president, she could get the United States bogged down in yet another conflict in the Middle East. Following in the footsteps of his Libertarian father, Ron Paul, who spent much of his lengthy political career demanding a more isolationist US foreign policy, Rand Paul tol [...]

With heavy fighting underway in south-eastern Ukraine, the distribution of humanitarian aid from Russia has started in the city of Lugansk, which is besieged by the Kiev forces. The first 12 points distributing food have already begun working. The minimum offering includes rice, buckwheat and sugar, three canned meats, a packet of tea and 10 liters of water, Novorossiya news agency reports. [...]