US Vice President Joe Biden has made the latest in a series of chastening apologies, after the United Arab Emirates expressed “astonishment” at his Thursday remarks. Biden called US allies “the biggest problem” in fighting terrorism in the Middle East. Biden called Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince and Deputy Defense Minister Mohammed bin Zayed on Sunday to reaffirm the allies’ shared perspect [...]

Intelligence service BND failed to protect the private data of German citizens as it handed over internet data collected at a Frankfurt traffic hub to the US, German media report citing secret documents. The documents cited by VDR and EDR television and the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which broke the news together, were obtained from the federal government during an ongoing parliamentary in [...]

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed he would wash his hands of Joe Biden if reports that the US vice president blamed Turkey in part for the rise of the so-called Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) were true. On Thursday, Biden said his “old friend” Erdogan had admitted to making a mistake in allowing foreign fighters to cross the Turkish border into Syria. [...]

Secret Service Director Julia Pierson resigned from her post atop the security detail in charge of protecting United States President Barack Obama on Wednesday following several recent serious breaches. Pierson, who was appointed only last year to head the US Secret Service after the agency’s reputation was marred by events that preceded her tenure as director, testified on Capitol Hill earli [...]

The chief director of ARD, Germany's largest public TV broadcaster, responded to viewers' criticism and the supervisory committee over its coverage of the Ukraine crisis. He said it conveyed Russian interests "too little" and could question NATO more. [...]

The German Air Force has spotted a manufacturing fault in the hull of Eurofighter Typhoon multirole fighter jet. The Defense Ministry ordered annual flying hours for each aircraft be halved due to the fuselage possibly becoming unstable. The defect was discovered in the rear section of the aircraft’s hull, forcing the announcement of suspended delivery of the jets assembled at the EADS plant [...]

An armed man who has been convicted of assault and battery three times was somehow able to slip past the Secret Service and ride in an elevator with President Barack Obama earlier this month, several media reports have said. The incident – which reportedly took place just three days before a man with a knife in his pocket climbed over the White House fence and made it into the building – is [...]

An Iraqi pilot accidentally dropped aid and ammunition into territory controlled by the Islamic State. They were intended to help government forces in the west of Iraq, but instead the blunder ended up aiding the enemy. The mistake was confirmed by two Iraqi officials, who said the airdrop of food, water and ammunition was meant to take place in Anbar province. [...]

Russia's Federation Council will boycott a scheduled business roundtable with US Senators next month, and has voiced intentions to stop co-operation with all sanction-supporting EU parliaments. The decision by members of the upper house to stay away from the October 14-15 summit in New York was voiced by the Council’s International Affairs Committee to Izvestia newspaper. [...]

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. [...]

It was the West that armed and financed ISIS and it is “outrageous” to blame Muslims for supporting extremists and close their bank accounts when they’ve done nothing wrong, Massoud Shadjareh from the Islamic Human Rights Commission, told RT. Earlier in September, some US banks closed dozens of accounts without any explanation. Letters were sent to business owners, nonprofits, and student [...]

The CIA's European Division has halted its operations in Western Europe in response to several spying scandals in Germany and the continent's negative reaction to the revelations of spying by the National Security Agency on European leaders and citizens. The stand-down order has been in effect for two months. [...]

Journalists and dissidents are under the microscope of intelligence agencies, Wikileaks revealed in its fourth SpyFiles series. A German software company that produces computer intrusion systems has supplied many secret agencies worldwide. The weaponized surveillance malware, popular among intelligence agencies for spying on “journalists, activists and political dissidents,” is produced by [...]

Pro-independence Scots rallied outside the BBC's Glasgow headquarters on Sunday to protest the public broadcaster's pro-union "bias" and demand the resignation of political editor Nick Robinson. Waving Scottish flags and “Yes Scotland” banners, protesters chanted, “You can stick your license fee up your a***!” while banners read “Auntie Beeb, anti-democracy, anti-truth”. [...]

NATO member states have started supplying weapons to Ukraine, the country's Defense Minister said on TV. His comments came a few days after a similar statement by a Ukrainian presidential aide sparked a diplomatic scandal and a rash of denials. In an interview with Channel 5, Ukrainian Defense Minister Valery Geletey said that he had held verbal consultations with the defense ministers of the � [...]

US and UK intelligence services have secret access points for German telecom companies’ internal networks, Der Spiegel reports, citing slides created in the NSA’s ‘Treasure Map’ program used to get near-real-time visualization of the global internet. The latest scandal continues to evolve around the US’ NSA and the British GCHQ, both of which appear to be able to eavesdrop on German g [...]

The family of US journalist James Foley – who was kidnapped and killed by the Islamic State – had been “threatened” by the US government with charges of aiding terrorists if they tried to raise funds to pay ransom for him, Foley’s mother told the media. Obama administration officials repeatedly warned the family of murdered journalist James Foley that they might face criminal charges [...]

The BBC faces accusations of anti-independence bias after its political editor, Nick Robinson, produced a report that wrongly claimed Alex Salmond had ignored his question during a heated press conference. Calling into question the impartiality of the publicly-owned broadcaster, the veteran BBC correspondent edited out Salmond’s lengthy answer, in which the First Minister claimed the BBC had [...]

MPs’ staff, travel and accommodation costs reached £103 million last year, up from £99 million the previous year and £95 million in 2009 – the peak of the parliamentary expenses scandal. More than £80 million was spent on staff salaries and £11 million on office costs. The bill for accommodation, covering hotels, rented homes and utility bills, was £6.9 million, while £4.5 mill [...]