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Russia's ambassador to Washington has been recalled to Moscow for "consultations" to determine how to move forward with relations with the U.S., the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Wednesday.Why it matters: The news came hours after an interview aired in which President Biden agreed that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a "killer" and pledged to hold the Kremlin accountable for interfering in the 2020 election.Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova did not provide specific reasons for the recall of Ambassador Anatoly Antonov, but she said relations with the U.S. "are in a difficult state, which Washington has brought...

While it may be too costly for Beijing to attack the United States directly, Beijing is getting its message out at relatively minimal cost through attacking U.S. allies like Australia. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison gave his strongest response to Communist China this week after enduring months of bullying from Beijing. He let Beijing know loud and clear that Australia is “an open trading nation, but I’m never going to trade our values in response to coercion.”It all began back in April, when Australia led a draft resolution, which demanded the World Health Organization (WHO) conduct an “impartial, independent and...

Orthodox Christianity and Islam are based on the same fundamental values, President Vladimir Putin said in an address to a religious conference in Kyrgyzstan. The conference, titled "Orthodoxy and Islam — Religions of Peace," aimed to promote interethnic and interreligious dialogue between Russia and Kyrgyzstan. "Islam and Orthodox Christianity, just like other world religions, are based on fundamental humanistic values that are of enduring importance — on mercy and love for one’s near, justice and respect for human beings," the state-run TASS news agency quoted Putin as saying Thursday. The address, which was read out to the conference by Russian...

HOT OFF THE PRESSES!! TRANSLATED FROM UKRAINIAN ON INSTAGRAM: Miss Ukraine Universe Anastasia Subbota is not allowed in the US to the finals of the competition [Miss Universe 2019]. The girl was denied an American visa. Director of the competition Anna Filimonova is trying to solve the problem with the documents. But there is very little time - the finale will take place in Atlanta on December 8. For the 14 years of the Miss Ukraine Universe contest, this is the first time the Consulate has not given the winner the entry permit to America. “There are 12 days left...

The Coming War on China, from award winning journalist John Pilger, reveals what the news doesn’t – that the world’s greatest military power, the United States, and the world’s second economic power, China, both nuclear-armed, may well be on the road to war. Nuclear war is not only imaginable, but planned. The greatest build-up of NATO military forces since the Second World War is under way on the western borders of Russia. On the other side of the world, the rise of China is viewed in Washington as a threat to American dominance. To counter this, President Obama announced a...

A dozen House Democrats are calling for President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, to resign in the wake of revelations about his key role in the unfolding Ukraine scandal. The calls for his ouster come as Sondland prepares to be deposed Tuesday by House committees as part of their impeachment inquiry into the president. The list includes one presidential candidate — Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio. Sondland, a Trump political appointee, has emerged as a central player in Trump’s bid to persuade Ukraine’s new government to commit publicly to investigate corruption and the president’s political opponents....

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. The war of letters began when 22 countries penned a letter to the United Nations Human Rights Council condemning China's treatment of Uighurs and "other Muslim and minorities communities." The letter in defense of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang was signed by France, Germany, Canada, Sweden and 18 other, mostly Western and European, countries. The case of the missing Muslim signatories was solved when the People’s Republic of China fired back with its own letter signed...

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif this week demanded that the United States pull its troops out of the Persian Gulf region, arguing that such a move is “fully in line” with the interest of America and the world. His comments, made via his official Twitter account on Monday, came amid skyrocketing U.S.-Iran tensions, mainly stemming from Tehran’s decision to shoot down an American drone this month. The incident is bringing the two countries closer to a military conflict. Both have warned they are ready for war. “[U.S. President Donald Trump] is 100% right that the US military has no...

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — A high-ranking U.S. envoy has urged Serbia and Kosovo to stop provoking each other and to resume their discussions over how to normalize relations between the two former wartime foes. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale, who met with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, also called Friday on Kosovo to lift a 100 percent tariff on Serbian goods so that European Union-mediated talks can resume.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea and the U.S. on Friday formally signed a deal on Seoul's increased payment for the U.S. troop deployment, amid worries about the future of the countries' decades-long military alliance... South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and U.S. Ambassador Harry Harris signed the new cost-sharing deal on Friday. During a signing ceremony, Kang called the deal "the results of hard work and sometimes difficult work" that "the alliance can build upon to become stronger and greater." Harries said the deal's signing underscores "the importance of iron-clad nature of our alliance."

JERUSALEM (AP) — The United States has officially shuttered its consulate in Jerusalem, downgrading the status of its main diplomatic mission to the Palestinians by folding it into the U.S. Embassy to Israel. For decades, the consulate functioned as a de facto embassy to the Palestinians. Now, that outreach will be handled by a Palestinian affairs unit, under the command of the embassy. The symbolic shift hands authority over U.S. diplomatic channels with the West Bank and Gaza to ambassador David Friedman, a longtime supporter and fundraiser for the West Bank settler movement and fierce critic of the Palestinian leadership....

N orth Korean state media brushed over the failure to reach a deal in its coverage of the Vietnam summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, indicating that hope remains for progress in future negotiations. The headline on the front page of Rodong Sinmun, the country's official newspaper, made no mention of the collapse in talks and the lack of agreement, instead proclaiming how well the summit had gone. The newspaper referred to the "constructive and candid exchange" that the US and North Korean leaders had during their two days of meetings in Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital. The positive write-up...

US State Secretary Mike Pompeo's quest to scare Hungary away from dealing with Russia and China appears to have turned sour, as Budapest said it's fed up with lectures about its foreign policy. Pompeo is on a five-day massive charm offensive in Eastern Europe seeking to "make up" for the time the US "shunned" the nations of the region "in a way that drove them to fill a vacuum with folks who didn't share our values," as he himself put it. He did not focus his attention solely on the Kremlin, though, and promptly warned his Hungarian counterpart about the...

LATE LAST WEEK, by a razor-thin margin, Greek lawmakers voted to approve a deal normalizing relations with Macedonia, their country's northern neighbor. Chalk up a rare victory for common sense in the Balkans.For nearly three decades, Greece kept up a bitter feud with the tiny country next door, which declared its independence after the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991. Greeks were infuriated that the former Yugoslav republic, which had always been known as Macedonia, named itself "Macedonia." As far as most Greeks were concerned, that name rightfully belonged only to the ancient kingdom of Philip II and his world-conquering son...

Former U.S. diplomat Elliott Abrams will lead U.S. efforts on Venezuela, where Washington has recognized an opposition leader as the legitimate president, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday. “Elliott will be a true asset to our mission to help the Venezuelan people fully restore democracy and prosperity to their country,” Pompeo said in announcing Abrams’ appointment. He said Abrams would accompany him to the United Nations on Saturday for a Security Council meeting on Venezuela where the U.S. will press other countries to support opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s interim head of state. Abrams, appearing...

The military attache at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, Col. José Luis Silva, broke with the Nicolás Maduro regime Saturday and urged other armed forces members to recognize Juan Guaidó as the legitimate interim president of the South American nation. “As the Venezuelan defense attache in the United States, I do not recognize Mr. Nicolás Maduro as president of Venezuela,” Silva told el Nuevo Herald in a telephone interview from Washington D.C. “My message to all armed forces members, to everyone who carries a gun, is to please let’s not attack the people. We are also part of the people,...

A Canadian man originally given 15 years in prison for drug smuggling was sentenced to death in China on Monday after a one-day retrial, the surprising verdict coming amid growing tensions between Beijing and Ottawa after the arrest of a top Chinese tech executive last month. Robert Lloyd Schellenberg was given the death penalty in Dalian Intermediate People’s Court in the northeast province of Liaoning after an appeals court last month agreed with prosecutors

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on Saturday he will force a vote soon on a resolution to disapprove the Trump administration's decision to relax sanctions on three Russian companies connected to oligarch Oleg Deripaska…{snip} ...The U.S. Treasury announced on Dec. 20 that it would lift sanctions imposed in April on the core businesses of Deripaska, including aluminum giant Rusal its parent En+ and power firm EuroSibEnergo, watering down the toughest penalties imposed since Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea. After lobbying by European governments that followed the imposition of sanctions, Washington postponed enforcement of the sanctions...

The New York Times is quick to the typeset to explain how Brussels is desperately offended because President Trump and Secretary Pompeo have lowered the importance of the EU. Officials from the European Union are apoplectic that U.S. officials have downgraded their status amid the official registry of diplomatic protocols. (snip) -- BRUSSELS — The Trump administration downgraded the diplomatic status of the European Union’s delegation to the United States last year without making a formal announcement or informing the bloc about the change, a European official said on Tuesday.

“Poland recently made an ostensible move against Russian interests in Warsaw by sidelining Soviet-era graduates of Russia's most prestigious academic institution, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), from its foreign ministry..." Katarina Kertysova, an analyst at the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS), says that gradual dismissal of MGIMO alumni from senior positions at home and abroad has been under way since Poland’s conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS) came to power in 2015. Kertysova argues in her article, entitled “Know Your Enemy,” that the Moscow State Institute of International Relations was one of the most prestigious academic...