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.” [...]

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, [...]

Tens of thousands of people are flooding the streets of cities all over Europe on Saturday in mass rallies against a controversial trade agreement between the US and the EU. Talks on the pact, called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), started last February and, having been mostly held behind closed doors, have raised widespread concerns in the European Union and beyond. [...]

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 [...]

The US goal in the Ukrainian conflict is to put up a dividing line between NATO states and Russia and create the Transatlantic political, economic and military community, John Laughland of the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation in Paris told RT. US Vice President Joe Biden in his speech to Harvard University's Institute of Politics last week admitted that the US government pushed the EU to [...]

Washington will not be the one to decide Sweden’s policies, Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström said after the US criticized Stockholm’s plans to officially recognize Palestine as a sovereign state. “It's not the US that decides our politics,” Wallström said, adding that the new Swedish authorities expected to “get criticism” after their announcement on Palestinian statehood [...]

Armenia has decided to hang its hat with its former Soviet ally Russia instead of joining a European free-trade agreement, President Serzh Sarksyan announced after meeting with Vladimir Putin. Armenia said it would join Russia in the Customs Union, as well as engage in the Eurasian integration process instead of negotiating a free trade agreement with the EU. [...]

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 [...]

Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia have together re-exported 1.7 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to Ukraine, Gazprom, Russia's biggest gas exporter said Friday, questioning the legality of the practice. “There is every reason to believe that Russian gas is being delivered to Ukraine that isn’t intended for them, but for other European customers. [...]

Prime Minister David Cameron has vowed to scrap the Human Rights Act if the Conservatives are re-elected in Britain's 2015 general election. The controversial proposal has stoked the ire of civil rights groups across the nation. Speaking on the final day of the Conservative Party’s four-day conference, Cameron pledged to do away with the Act and replace it with a British “bill of rights.” [...]

Under the auspices of the UN Security Council, with president Obama chairing the session, the US has called upon the international community to adopt strong measures, at national and international levels, to curtail the recruitment of IS fighters. What is not mentioned in the media reports is that the heads of State and heads of government who have endorsed America’s campaign against the Isla [...]

Two asylum seekers have been severely beaten and abused by security guards in a German town. The police compared the brutal actions to those committed by US guards in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, against the prisoners. The seekers were abused in shelter home in a small community of Burbach, North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany, reported the country’s press. [...]

Prostitution, drug trafficking and other illegal activities have finally been included in Spain's gross domestic product, boosting it by 9 billion euros according to the latest statistics. Latest data from the National Statistics Institute (INE) reveals the drug trade, prostitution, illegal weapon sales and gambling contributed some €9 billion, or 0.87 percent of country’s total GDP in 2013 [...]

The British establishment is breathing a collective sigh of relief. The people of Scotland have chosen Westminster rule over political sovereignty, and the Union remains intact. Scotland’s pro-independence campaigners, bent on separatism and self-determination, claimed they had the momentum to realize an independent Scottish state. But they were mistaken. [...]

An independent Flanders with Brussels as its capital will be best for the Flemish people who represent 60 percent of the Belgium population, and provide 80 percent of its economy, Flemish MP Tom van Grieken told RT. Following in the footsteps of Scotland, Veneto in Italy and Catalonia in Spain, and Belgium’s Flemish region may become the next to hold a referendum on independence. [...]

When you think of how happy people in a whole country are, what do you take into account? True, country well-being and perception of own happiness depend greatly on the economic situation. But it's Panama that tops Gallup's Global Well-being Index. The Gallup-Healthways index, released for the year 2013, puts the Latin American country at number one, with war-torn Syria and Afghanistan coming i [...]

Russia considers the latest round of Western sanctions illegal and is ready to appeal against them to the World Trade Organization (WTO), Russian Economy Minister Aleksey Ulyukaev told reporters on Friday. “The latest round of sanctions provides grounds to appeal to the WTO. And we will appeal,” Ulyukaev said. [...]

Sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and the EU are a part of a larger military agenda agreed by NATO in a summit 2014, Michel Chossudovsky, of the Centre for Research and Globalisation, told RT, calling such a strategy economic and financial warfare. Despite the truce in Ukraine, the EU and the US went ahead with fresh rounds of sanctions – why was the de-escalation of the conflict in the e [...]

Russia has been put into an impossible situation, meaning they are responsible not only for what has been done in Lugansk and Donetsk, but also for what has been done on the side of Kiev, political analyst Alexander Pavic told RT. Apparently, the truce in Ukraine is not enough for the EU to hold back on yet more sanctions. [...]

Imports of Western cars and clothes into Russia could be restricted as part of a second round of "retaliatory" measures prepared in response to the sanctions against Moscow, says presidential aide Andrey Belousov. There are many sellers of non-agricultural goods in the West who are heavily dependent on the Russian market, the official said. [...]