An anti-nuclear lawmaker broke a taboo, drawing heavy criticism in Japan, by handing the Emperor a letter of concern over the issue of the growing Fukushima radiation and the impact on children’s health. [...]

Debates about mass surveillance and calls for "€œreforms to politics, supervision and laws"€ mean leaks about US secret service were justified, a former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden wrote in his "€œManifesto for the Truth." In his opinion piece, published in German Der Spiegel news magazine on Sunday, Snowden writes that his revelations have in fact been useful and society will benefit fr [...]

US President Barack Obama has called on the National Security Agency to halt spying on the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in conjunction with a review of surveillance activities, Reuters reported. A US official told the news agency that President Obama curbed the spying within the last few weeks. [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been ranked the most powerful person in the world by Forbes. He topped the list of the 72 world figures that "€œmatter the most,"€ while US President Barack Obama was rated second. Putin’s Syria “chess match” that prevented the US strike, and his having the last word in the diplomatic row over the fugitive NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, didn’t [...]

The White House is at a loss as it not only depended on espionage in formulating its policies, but also nobody can trust its word anymore, former US Senate foreign policy analyst James Petras told RT. The latest news on monitoring of phone calls in France, and probably German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s own cellphone, brought anger from the French and German governments this week. [...]

Twelve years after Americans were stripped of their rights in the name of fighting terrorism, thousands have gathered in Washington DC to protest unconstitutional NSA spying programs revealed by Edward Snowden, and call for repeal of the Patriot Act. [...]

"What Has America Become" was the title of a letter to the editor written by Ken Huber of Tawas City, Michigan. It contains a series of comparisons and contrasts which causes one to think about the double-standards and conditions under which we now live here in America. Sadly America is in decline. [...]

Lawmakers in the Senate are weighing a bipartisan bill that is expected to re-open the United States government and save the country from default. During an early afternoon hearing on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) acknowledged, “The eyes of the world have been on Washington all this week, and that is a gross understatement. [...]

The United States is not the first superpower to act as if it'€™s exceptional and will likely not be the last, although US leaders could be squandering a fruitful opportunity for improved international relations, Noam Chomsky said in an interview with RT. [...]

The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case on whether a conviction for domestic violence precludes Americans from obtaining a firearms license. The Obama administration has argued that ending the prohibition would invalidate bans in much of the US. The Justices announced Tuesday they would hear eight cases of the more than 2,000 appeals that accumulated over the summer. [...]

Contrasting reactions in India and Brazil to revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden about the US government'€™s intrusive surveillance of communications in the two countries are a study in varying diplomatic style, substance and context. Recent confirmation from journalists working with Snowden that India was a prime victim caught in the crosshairs of the NSA’s megalithic data-swe [...]

The budget theater on Capitol Hill just gets more and more complex, intriguing, and -- perhaps above all -- embarrassing. First there was tragedy in August 2011, when Congress passed a budget act that created an undemocratic process, stripping policymakers of responsibility for reductions in both defense and discretionary spending. [...]

American investigative journalists Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald say they have teamed up to prepare a report on the National Security Agency's role in what one of them described as the "US assassination program." “The connections between war and surveillance are clear. I don't want to give too much away but Glenn and I are working on a project right now that has at its center how the Nation [...]

For the first time in more than 30 years the President of the United States has spoken with Iran's leadership. Barack Obama announced he believes the two sides can reach a deal regarding the future of the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. From the White House Friday afternoon, Obama said he just got off the phone with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and discussed “our ongoing efforts to reach [...]

The UN Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution outlining the details of taking under international control and ultimately destroying Syria’s chemical arsenal. "Today's historic resolution is the first hopeful news on Syria in a long time," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the council immediately after the vote. [...]

The longstanding notion of US exceptionalism has deep roots in the American psyche, but as the world experiences a “tectonic shift in global geopolitics” the very idea of Washington’s superiority is being challenged, analyst Eric Draitser told RT. Earlier this week, President Barack Obama reaffirmed Washington's desire to engage in the affairs of other states, particularly in the Mi [...]

A US military request for funding to renovate the prison base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba was denied by Pentagon officials in the Obama administration who, while pledging to close the prison, have been consistently prevented from doing so by Congress. General John F. Kelly, the chief of US Southern Command and the officer in charge of Guantanamo Bay, requested $195.7 million to update and modify the p [...]

Member states of the UN nuclear agency voted down an Arab-backed resolution targeting the Jewish state for criticism over its clandestine nuclear weapons arsenal. Fifty-one countries voted against the so-called ‘Israeli Nuclear Capabilities’ measure and 43 states voted for it in what was viewed as a victory for the United States, which opposed the initiative. [...]

Washington seems certain that exerting sanctions on countries is the safest way to achieve their foreign policy goals. In reality economic and political sanctions do little to control the governments they target, hitting ordinary citizens hard instead. “The aim of sanctions is to harm the state. But the real victims are ordinary, regular people. Experience has shown that there’s a huge wedge b [...]