United States President Barack Obama said Friday that the US and European Union are still prepared to impose sanctions against Russia if the crisis in Ukraine continues to escalate following the signing of a ceasefire agreement. Speaking in Newport, Wales at the close of a major NATO alliance summit, Pres. Obama expressed skepticism over a pact signed only hours earlier in Minsk during a meetin [...]

With the Obama administration already on the defensive about its threat to jail — or impose harsh fines on — New York Times reporter James Risen for refusing to reveal a confidential source, a Washington Post editorial urges the government to end all legal moves against him. The Post editorial (“The Administration Should Not Press Reporter James Risen to Reveal a Source,” August 22) quo [...]

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 [...]

Intelligence agencies like the NSA and GCHQ seek to scoop up literally every single form of digital and non-digital communication and data in the world all the time, political cartoonist and author Ted Rall told RT. It is very clear that the general mood in Europe as well as in the UK and in the USA is in favor of more privacy in the wake of Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations. [...]

As the Islamic State tears through minority communities in northern Iraq, the extremist terror group, that owes its ascendance to funding from US allies in the Middle East, sent a message to the White House: We're coming for you. “I say to America that the Islamic Caliphate has been established,” Abu Mosa, a spokesman for the Islamic State (IS), formerly know as the Islamic State in Iraq an [...]

US President Barack Obama is considering military action to help stranded Yazidi Kurds in Iraq who fled territories captured by Islamic State militants. On Thursday, President Obama assembled members of his national security team to discuss the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in regions of Iraq captured by the Islamic State (IS). [...]

US President Barack Obama is reportedly considering options to move on immigration reform via executive action despite protests from disapproving members of Congress. The Obama administration has offered little in the way of details as a review of potential options by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security continues. [...]

US officials are making groundless assertions about Moscow’s involvement in the downing of flight MH17, former CIA and US State Department official Larry Johnson told RT. On July 29 Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) issued an open letter to President Obama calling him to immediately release the evidence on the Malaysian airplane downing in eastern Ukraine. [...]

In the latest step by Washington to increase the pressure on Russia's border with Ukraine, the Obama administration has informed Congress that the US will train and arm the Ukrainian National Guard next year, the Pentagon said. "The Defense Department and State Department have notified Congress of our intent to use $19 million in global security contingency fund authority to train and equip fou [...]

President Barack Obama made a rare acknowledgment during a Friday press briefing concerning the United States' past use of enhanced interrogation tactics in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. “In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did things that were contrary to our val [...]

For the first time in American history, a chamber of Congress has authorized its leader to sue the President of the United States. In a 225-201 vote, the House of Representatives backed Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in his decision to file a lawsuit against President Obama over his handling of the Affordable Care Act. Boehner and other Republicans allege that Obama has flouted his constitutiona [...]

So Obama, Merkel, Cameron, Hollande and Renzi – let’s call them the Fab Five - got on a video conference call to muster their courage and “increase pressure” asking for a cease-fire in Gaza. Later in the day, Bibi delivers his answer, in plain language. He remains dead set on achieving his version of a Final Solution to Gaza. With or without “pressure”. [...]

Both the European Union and the United States announced a new round of sanctions against Moscow on Tuesday, accusing the Kremlin of supporting anti-Kiev militias in eastern Ukraine and threatening to cripple the Russian economy. The 28-member nations tied to the EU were first to acknowledge in a statement Tuesday that they’ve agreed to impose broader sanctions to “limit access to EU capital [...]

Revelations of the National Security Agency's global spy program, together with civil strife in Ukraine has severely damaged Barack Obama's popularity among Brazilians, Germans and Russians, a major US polling agency reported. Thanks to a series of global scandals, the United States in general, and its commander-in-chief in particular, [...]

As militias vow to protect the Texas border from illegal immigrants, Gov. Rick Perry (R-Texas) said he believes the president has an ulterior motive for not moving quickly to prevent the overwhelming numbers of immigrants crossing the border. Between January 1 and June 15, 2014, more than 52,000 unaccompanied alien children have been apprehended after crossing the Mexican border into the US [...]

Vladimir Putin has acknowledged that Russia-US relations are currently not at their best in a congratulatory Fourth of July note to Barack Obama. The Russian president said he was sure, however, that the two countries "must cooperate." The Independence Day greetings from Russia come at a time when relations between the two countries are at their lowest in years, mostly over differences in approach [...]

President Putin wished "€œBon appétit"€ to G7 leaders who patronized Russia – excluded from the club over Ukraine -€“ and set conditions it has to meet to restore ties with the West. Otherwise, Obama and his allies threatened, more sanctions would follow. [...]

The Snowden revelations hit like a bomb, sending out shrapnel which risked severing US ties with friendly and not-so-friendly states alike. Here are the top eight bilateral debacles sparked by NSA spying, whose fallout could be felt for years to come. [...]

Secretary of state to appear before oversight committee as Republicans seek to pressure presumed 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton. Republican efforts to maintain pressure on Hillary Clinton over her response to the killing of the US ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi received another boost on Friday as John Kerry, Clinton's successor at the State Department, agreed to testify at a new [...]

A specter is haunting Washington, an unnerving vision of a Sino-Russian alliance wedded to an expansive symbiosis of trade and commerce across much of the Eurasian land mass - at the expense of the United States. And no wonder Washington is anxious. That alliance is already a done deal in a variety of ways: [...]

A failure to properly grasp US interests in Ukraine has made Obama susceptible to hawks seeking confrontation with Russia despite the greater geopolitical goals that Moscow and Washington share, former CIA and State Dept. employee Larry Johnson told RT. Johnson belongs to a group of former US intelligence agents who are attempting to get Obama to change course and defuse the ongoing crisis in Ukra [...]

A UN report hammers the United States'€™ human rights record, denouncing vast surveillance, ongoing unaccountability for torture, deadly drone strikes, one of the world's highest death penalty counts, and mass incarceration, among other black marks. [...]