The National Security Agency is collecting millions of images of people through its international surveillance network to be implemented in a number of other facial recognition programs, according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden. [...]

Surfing on a wave of euro skepticism following the EU elections, UK Prime Minister David Cameron has called Brussels too big and bossy. The 28-nation bloc voted a record number of EU Parliament seats to anti-integration parties in the recent elections. [...]

There are many lessons to be learnt from the European election results. But whether Europe's spectacularly out-of-touch political and media elite do learn from them is a different thing altogether. The success of the anti-bail-out, anti-austerity party Syriza, who topped the poll in Greece, was one of the most eye-catching results of the election. [...]

China is calling on banks to stop using IBM servers and replace them with local-made machines amid fears that the nation’s financial security might be compromised via the US-based company’s servers, a Bloomberg report has revealed. [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says Ukraine's military and security services are "€œdangerously interfering with press freedom"€ by detaining journalists working with Russian news agencies and denying others entry into the country. [...]

The US House of Representatives approved an annual defense spending bill early Thursday after rejecting a proposed amendment that would have prevented the United States government from indefinitely detaining American citizens. [...]

A record number of Americans are renouncing their citizenship as they seek to remove the burden of filing complicated and costly tax returns simply for living in another country. Just over 1,000 Americans gave up their nationality in the three months from January to March. That’s a significant increase from the 670 who did so in the same time span last year, and it’s already one third of the w [...]

While Cliven Bundy supporters praised the armed individuals who came to the defense of the Nevada rancher in his land rights dispute with the federal government, the FBI is now investigating them for possible criminal offenses. The armed standoff between the Bureau of Land Management and Bundy – who has refused to pay $1 million in animal grazing fees the government claims he’s owned since the [...]

Vermont will become the first state to enact a law requiring labels on foods with genetically modified ingredients after the governor signed the bill into law on Thursday afternoon. The bill will go into effect in July 2016. "I am proud of Vermont for being the first state in the nation to ensure that Vermonters will know what is in their food. [...]

A report on human rights violations, law abuses, use of torture, inhuman treatment and other crimes in Ukraine from the end of November 2013 to the end of March 2014, a so called "€˜White Book"€™, has been presented by the Russian Foreign Ministry. The authors compiled their facts by carefully monitoring Ukrainian, Russian and some Western media reports. [...]

Vermont lawmakers have passed legislation that requires food made with genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, to be labeled as such. The law, the first of its kind in the US, must now get approval from Gov. Peter Shumlin, who has supported the bill. [...]

There is no large Russian military presence in East Ukraine, head of EU intelligence, Commodore Georgij Alafuzoff, has said. The spy chief has dismissed multiple accusations from the West alleging Russian involvement in the unrest in the region. In an interview with Finnish national news broadcaster, Yle, Alafuzoff said the Russian military had nothing to do with the seizing of government building [...]

Environmental regulators and North Dakota state officials have expressed concern that the state has failed to adequately adjust to the state'€™s sudden influx of crude oil output, a worry highlighted by the recent discovery of abandoned radioactive waste. Last month, the North Dakota Health Department announced that a large pile of oil filter socks [...]

A new bill introduced in Congress looks to ban states from implementing their own labeling laws when it comes to food containing genetically engineered ingredients. According to Reuters, US Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) introduced the legislation on Wednesday, which is intended to head off bills in about 24 states that would require companies to inform customers when their food is produced using genet [...]

Russia says it will not reconsider its principles and foreign policy after the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) passed a resolution that puts all the blame for the Ukrainian crisis on Moscow. The newly-adopted resolution “does not mean that Russia will rush to reconsider its foreign policy and principles,” MP Aleksey Pushkov, the head of the Russian delegation to PACE, to [...]

No legal means exist to challenge mass surveillance, said NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, testifying to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. A former NSA contractor, Snowden was speaking to the PACE session in Strasbourg via a video link-up from Moscow. [...]

Russia's barrage of sarcastic comments to the Obama administration, which is seeking to impose sanctions to change Moscow'€™s stance on Ukraine, has been enriched with a piece of advice to relax and look for inner tranquility. The comments came from Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, who was speaking with Interfax news agency about the worst period of tension between Russia and the US over [...]

Who would have thought a unitary superpower on Earth would accelerate a return to regionalism in place of globalization? For all those who deem ‘Financial Innovation’ to be an oxymoron, that brilliant invention the credit card springs to mind. [...]

Parliamentary hearings into the scandal involving NSA spying on Germany have started. Some members of the investigative committee have suggested bringing in the document leaker Edward Snowden himself to testify. Some expect this to anger Washington. [...]

A Senate report found that CIA officials lied to the government and public about its post-9/11 torture program, most notably by distorting intelligence gleaned from traditional interrogations as that attained by far more brutal methods. [...]

Following Congress'€™ decision to approve a $1 billion aid package to Ukraine last week, former libertarian Congressman Ron Paul has published an op-ed strongly criticizing it as a bad deal for both American taxpayers and Ukrainian citizens. In the column, published by Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, the iconic libertarian said the bill effectively puts the International Monetary Fu [...]

Brazil'€™s public prosecutor wants to suspend use of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s pervasive herbicide Roundup. A recent study suggested glyphosate may be linked to a fatal kidney disease that has affected poor farming regions worldwide. [...]