Author: RT

Beijing slams ‘hidden agenda’ behind HK ‘human rights act’ as US Senate votes unanimously in favor The Senate has approved a Hong Kong “human rights” bill by unified vote which would empower the State Department to grade the territory’s “autonomy” and levy sanctions on foreign officials if Washington deems it insufficient. The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act passed through the Senate on Tuesday after a unanimous voice vote, following a similar unchallenged approval of a companion bill in the House in October. Both chambers of Congress are now set to reconcile the two different versions of the law before it goes to President Trump’s desk for a final sign-off, however the full support of both houses makes a veto unlikely. ...

So much for the #Resistance! While all eyes were on impeachment hearing, House re-authorized PATRIOT Act House Democrats have slipped an unqualified renewal of the draconian PATRIOT Act into an emergency funding bill – voting near-unanimously for sweeping surveillance carte blanche that was the basis for the notorious NSA program. A three-month reauthorization of the notorious PATRIOT Act was shoehorned into a last-minute continuing resolution (CR) funding the US government, bundling measures needed to avert yet another government shutdown with a continuation of the wildly-intrusive surveillance powers passed after the 9/11 terror attacks. Democrats voted almost unanimously for it, granting the far-reaching surveillance capabilities to the very same...

2 arrested at NY university after protesters disrupt speech by Trump-decorated economist (VIDEO) Two left-wing activists were arrested after dozens of protesters interrupted a speech by economist Arthur Laffer at Binghamton University in New York, shutting down the event and drawing sharp condemnation from the school. A Reagan administration adviser best known for his contributions to supply-side economic theory, Laffer was scheduled to address a conservative group at Binghamton on Monday when a crowd of demonstrators stormed the lecture hall to protest the event. I’m disgusted by the chaos we’ve witnessed erupt across the @binghamtonu campus over the past several days. Our college campuses should be places where ideas and peaceful disc...

The Guardian’s journalists are Kremlin and Qatari agents: Russian oligarch trolls newspaper after ‘ex-KGB’ smear job After a sensational headline in The Guardian dished the dirt on UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s meeting with an “ex-KGB agent” in Italy, the Russian businessman involved has hit back, with some trolling accusations of his own. “Boris Johnson met an ex-KGB agent during a highly controversial trip to attend a party two days after attending a high-level Nato summit that focused on Russia,” The Guardian reported on Sunday. No details of the meeting are revealed in the report, but through heavy use of context – the meeting took place last year, a month after the poisoning of the Skripals in Salisbury – it was nonetheless portrayed as a s...

Ukraine interfering in US elections is not a ‘Russian narrative’ but a US media one Mainstream US media outlets and impeachment witness Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman have called stories of Ukrainian influence in the 2016 US election a conspiracy theory pushed by Russim president. Evidence shows otherwise. Testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, Vindman – a National Security Council staffer – argued that any Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election is “a Russian narrative promoted by [President Vladimir] Putin,” rejected by the entire US intelligence community. Not only is narrative of Ukranian interference in 2016 election false, and rejected by all intelligence community; Vindman adds "it's a Russian narrative pro...

Pentagon & war-hawks agree: US troops should stay in Syria - 'because ISIS' The withdrawal of American troops from Syria has set the stage for a return of Islamic State, claims a new Pentagon report. The report aligns the Pentagon with war-hungry lawmakers who opposed the withdrawal from the outset. In a report released on Tuesday, the Defense Department’s Inspector General warns that without a US presence in northeastern Syria, the terror group will “likely be able to rebuild and carry out more sophisticated operations.”   The withdrawal from Syria – where the US has no legal right to be in the first place – is only a partial one, with some troops and assets remaining behind to deny Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and the Syrian government ac...

Monopoly? What monopoly? Big Tech defends itself from antitrust allegations with denial & doublespeak Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple are pushing back against the US government’s antitrust investigations, downplaying their dominance of the tech sector, playing dumb, and staying quiet where they can’t obfuscate. The Big Tech behemoths responded to written questions sent by the House Judiciary Committee - one of several antitrust probes targeting the four companies - with concerted efforts to tone down their monopolistic image - no easy feat for two trillion-dollar companies and two more that are approaching that figure. Answers were shared with reporters on Tuesday, according to Reuters. Also on rt.com Googl...

What do ’Christmas ornaments, drywall, & Epstein’ have in common? Senator demands answers on prison ‘suicide’ Americans aren’t buying the claim that Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide alone in his jail cell under the watchful eye of the Bureau of Prisons, a Louisiana senator has warned the agency’s director with a rather unusual quip. “Christmas ornaments, drywall, and Jeffrey Epstein – name three things that don’t hang themselves,” Senator John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) declared during a Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, clarifying that he wasn’t the only one who saw a resemblance between the objects and the supposedly suicidal pedophile: “That’s what the American people think!” .@Senjohnkennedy: “Christmas ornaments, drywall and ...

UN torture envoy demands ‘full accountability & compensation’ after Sweden drops rape probe against Assange The UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture has called for a “full investigation” into the role Sweden played in driving WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange into asylum and eventual custody, after the rape case against him was dropped. Swedish prosecutors announced on Tuesday that they would drop a dubious rape inquiry against Assange, as oral testimony against the publisher had “weakened,” and corroborating evidence was not strong enough to pursue a case. A Swedish arrest warrant was issued against assange in 2010, and a British court upheld a decision to extradite him in 2012. Threatened with what many saw as a politically motivated extradition,...