Former mayor of London Ken Livingstone believes that since as far back as the First World War, the United States, with Britain's help, has intervened on numerous occasions all over the Middle East just to control the flow of oil. If you follow Middle East history since this period, then the West has propped up corrupt regimes and overthrown democratically elected ones, Ken Livingstone told RT. [...]

Six years after the Lehman disaster, the industrialized world is suffering from Japan Syndrome. Growth is minimal, another crash may be brewing and the gulf between rich and poor continues to widen. Can the global economy reinvent itself? A new buzzword is circulating in the world's convention centers and auditoriums. It can be heard at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and at the [...]

He doesn't drink, he's reading Dostoevsky and, no, he doesn't wear a disguise. A year after blowing the whistle on the NSA, America's most wanted talks to Alan Rusbridger and Ewen MacAskill about his life as a hero-pariah– and why the world remains ‘more dangerous than Orwell imagined’. Fiction and films, the nearest most of us knowingly get to the world of espionage, give us a series of [...]

Barack Obama authorized targeted air strikes against Islamic militants on Thursday. American warplanes began bombing Islamic militant targets outside the Kurdish city of Irbil on Friday, in the first offensive action by the US in Iraq since it withdrew ground troops in 2011. [...]

Chechen president says ban, which extends to EU leaders Barroso, Van Rompuy and Ashton, is response to US and EU 'state terrorism.' Although Russia has not responded to US sanctions over the Ukraine crisis by putting a travel ban on President Barack Obama, there is one part of the country he is now barred from entering: Chechnya. [...]

NSA whistleblower praises Guardian and Washington Post after pair share Pulitzer prize for public service. The former NSA contractor Edward Snowden issued a statement on Monday in response to the decision by the Pulitzer prize committee to reward the Guardian and the Washington Post with its top 2014 award. It reads, in full: [...]

Belbek commander reportedly taken away by Russian troops as Obama hopes to increase Russia's isolation on upcoming Europe trip. The White House on Saturday responded cautiously to the news that Russian troops had forced their way into a Ukrainian airbase in Crimea. [...]

White House suggests executive order might not be the end of measures taken in response to events in Ukraine. President Barack Obama has extended financial sanctions against Russia to include wealthy supporters of Vladimir Putin and a bank said to be close to the Kremlin, in a bid to deter further aggression against Ukraine. [...]

Seumas Milne: The external struggle to dominate Ukraine has put fascists in power and brought the country to the brink of conflict. Diplomatic pronouncements are renowned for hypocrisy and double standards. But western denunciations of Russian intervention in Crimea have reached new depths of self parody. [...]

Brazil, China and Venezuela sharply critical of 'illegal' programme but US says it has taken steps to introduce new guidelines. The US government has defended its use of drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and other countries in front of the UN, telling a chamber full of largely critical nations that in President Obama's view the deployment of unmanned aerial attacks [...]

On July 2, the United States put pressure on several European countries to prevent a plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales from landing to refuel at any of their airports. The excuse for this unprecedented denial of landing rights was the unfounded claim that Morales was hiding American whistleblower Edward Snowden on board his presidential jet. [...]

Officials refuse to say in Senate testimony whether cell site data had ever been used to pinpoint an individual's location. US intelligence chiefs used an appearance before Congress on Thursday to urge lawmakers not to allow public anger over the extent of government surveillance to result in changes to the law that would impede them from preventing terrorist attacks. [...]

John Kerry has 'substantive' talks with foreign minister as hopes grow for a timetable to end bitter stalemate. Iran and the US held their first substantive high-level meeting since the 1979 Islamic revolution on Thursday night at multilateral talks hailed on both sides as a fresh start for nuclear negotiations, raising hopes of a solution to the long running stalemate. [...]

Dilma Rousseff's scathing speech to UN general assembly the most serious diplomatic fallout over revelations of US spying. She launched a blistering attack on US espionage at the UN general assembly, accusing the NSA of violating international law by its indiscriminate collection of personal information of Brazilian citizens and economic espionage targeted on the country's strategic industries. [...]

US president tells memorial for Washington navy yard victims Americans must not accept mass shootings as inevitable. President Barack Obama has called for a transformation in US gun laws at a memorial service for the Washington navy yard shooting victims, saying, "There's nothing inevitable about it." Obama said Americans should honour the victims of last Monday's shooting by insisting on a change [...]

Exclusive: Journalist uses Freedom of Information Act to disclose 1961 accident in which one switch averted catastrophe. A secret document, published in declassified form for the first time by the Guardian today, reveals that the US Air Force came dramatically close to detonating an atom bomb over North Carolina that would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that devastated Hiroshima [...]