Russia

NSA blowback: Top 8 political scandals sparked by Snowden leaks
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. [...]
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62 yo Russian solo sailor crosses Pacific on rowboat covering 17,000km in just 162 days
World-famous Russian traveller and adventurer Fedor Konyukhov, who has been on a solo-rowing voyage across the Pacific Ocean since December, has reached the Australian coast, completing his adventure in a record 162 days. [...]
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€‹Brave old (exceptionalist) world
"€œI believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being."€ So there it is, straight from the lion'€™s mouth, as in US President Barack Obama. The rest are details: deadly details, as in the US military remaining “at the core” of the exceptional worldview; the Pentagon reserving for itself “the power to launch unilateral attacks when America’s interests are directly thre [...]
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Eastern energy pivot threatens the US dollar
The "€œPower of Siberia"€ is much more than a 30 year Sino-Russian gas/pipeline deal. Paying for the process accelerates the vogue to reduce dollar pricing. That, not the energy supply, will become the most acute threat to US economic hegemony. [...]
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I am a real spy, not low-level system administrator – Snowden
Edward Snowden was trained as a professional spy and actually worked undercover abroad for America'€™s biggest intelligence agencies, developing their IT security architecture, the whistleblower revealed in an exclusive interview to NBC News. [...]
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Ukraine dangerously interfering with press freedom -€“ Human Rights Watch
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. [...]
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€‹Russia and China seal historic $400bn gas deal
After 10 years of negotiations, Russia's Gazprom and China's CNPC have finally signed a historic gas deal which will provide the world's fastest growing economy with the natural gas it needs to keep pace for the next 30 years. The total value of the contract is $400 billion, Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller said. However, the price of gas stipulated in the document remains a "commercial secret." [...]
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The birth of a Eurasian century: Russia and China do Pipelineistan
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: [...]
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Russia & China: “€˜No to sanctions rhetoric, regime change in other countries”
Moscow and Beijing have rejected the imposition of sanctions as political tools and condemned attempts at "encouraging and financing"€ regime changes in other countries in a joint statement released during President Putin'€™s official visit to China. [...]
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Unprotected in the East: NATO Appears Toothless in Ukraine Crisis
They were big words, spoken almost as if they had been written in stone. "Our commitment to collective defence is rock solid, now and for the future," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said more than a week ago, first in the Polish capital Warsaw and then, on the same day, in the Estonian capital Tallinn. [...]
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NATO: Coming to terms with America’€™s Frankenstein monster
The fifteenth anniversary of NATO'€™s bombing of Yugoslavia, a barbaric and illegal act that mocked international law, provides an opportunity to consider the ultimate purpose of the US-led military machine. NATO’s attack on Yugoslavia, which saw US-built cruise missiles pound the Balkan nation into submission after 78 consecutive days of bomb strikes (March 24, 1999 to June 10, 1999), taught [...]
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Russia-China ties at highest level in history -€“ Putin
Russia-China cooperation has reached its highest level ever, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said in an interview with Chinese media on the eve of his visit to Shanghai, where a record package of documents is expected to be signed by the two nations. [...]
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UK to run out of oil, gas and coal in five years -€“ report
New research from the Global Sustainability Institute has found that Britain, France and many other European countries have low reserves of fossil fuels, and their home grown energy could be entirely reliant on imports in several years. The study found that the UK has just 5.2 years of oil, 4.5 years of coal and three years of gas before it completely runs out of fossil fuels, said the researchers [...]
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France refuses to block Mistral warship deal with Russia
The French government has said that it will go ahead with 1.2 billion euro ($1.6 billion) contract to supply Russia with two Mistral helicopter carriers because cancelling the deal would harm Paris more than Moscow. In the wake of the crisis in Ukraine, the United States had been pressing France as well as Britain and Germany to take a tougher line against Russia and cancel the Mistral contract. [...]
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Donetsk People’s Republic asks Moscow to consider its accession into Russia
Donetsk People's Republic has proclaimed itself a sovereign state and has asked Moscow to consider its accession into Russia, the Republic'€™s council said. “We, the people of Donetsk, based on results of the May 11 referendum and the declaration of sovereignty of the Donetsk People’s Republic, declare that from now on DPR is now a sovereign state,” Republic Co-Chairman Denis Pushilin said [...]
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Putin Displays Ukraine Chess Mastery
Washington finally found its new bogeyman: Osama Bin Putin. Russia's celebrations of the 69th anniversary of the defeat of fascism in World War II come just days after Ukrainian neo-fascists enacted an appalling Odessa massacre. For those who know their history, the graphic symbolism speaks for itself. [...]
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Russia: Historic 30-yr gas deal with China set to be signed next week
A historic, long-term deal for the delivery of Russian gas to China that has been 10 years in the making is 98 percent ready, Russia'€™s Deputy Energy Minister Anatoly Yanovsky has said. All that's needed are the two countries'€™ signatures, he added. [...]
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Medical jet due to pick up badly wounded RT stringer denied landing in Ukraine
A German medical jet which was to be hired by RT TV channel in order to pick up RT'€™s stringer, critically wounded during a military operation in Mariupol, was denied landing in the eastern Ukrainian city, gripped by unrest. [...]
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Lawmaker calls for CIS human rights court to try Ukrainian violators
A senior Russian MP has suggested the Commonwealth of Independent States set up its own Court of Human Rights to investigate the events that led the current Kiev regime taking power and the actions of pro-Maidan radicals against federalization supporters. [...]
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The IMF goes to war in Ukraine
The IMF has approved a $17 billion loan to Ukraine. The first $3.2 billion tranche has arrived on Wednesday. It’s essential to identify the conditions attached to this Mafia-style “loan.” Nothing remotely similar to reviving the Ukrainian economy is in play. The scheme is inextricably linked to the IMF’s notorious, one-size-fits-all “structural adjustment” policy, known to hundreds of [...]
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Moscow releases “€˜White Book”€™ on human rights abuses in crisis-torn Ukraine
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. [...]
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€˜Ukraine crisis fueled by Obama’€™s failure to grasp US interests
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 [...]
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