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House Democrats launched into lengthy arguments that broke little ground, if any, in President Trump's impeachment trial Wednesday -- as the head impeachment manager, California Rep. Adam Schiff, suggested that Russians could attack the U.S. and insisted that removing Trump from office was necessary because the integrity of the 2020 election could not be "assured." Trump's lawyers sat by, waiting their turn, as the president blasted the proceedings from afar, threatening jokingly to face off with the Democrats by coming to "sit right in the front row and stare at their corrupt faces." The challenge before the House managers has...

Last week, Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp announced their opposition to American military intervention in Syria, and proposed a 45-day ultimatum for Bashar al-Assad to give up his chemical weapons first.  Barack Obama seemed to dismiss that option last week at the G-20 summit, but ABC News reports that John Kerry may have offered it as a way out of the trap Obama has set for himself: America’s top diplomat suggested in a passing remark that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could avoid a U.S.-led strike if he handed over all his chemical weapons, but the State Department quickly...

MOSCOW, September 5 (RIA Novosti) - A round of ammunition used near the largest Syrian city of Aleppo in a purported chemical weapons attack in March was not a factory-made item of the Syrian armed forces, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. The ministry was guided by the conclusions of Russian experts who investigated the March 19 incident in Syria that reportedly left 26 civilians and soldiers dead and another 86 people injured. “The used round of ammunition was a homemade item on the basis of rockets made in Syria’s north by the so-called Bashair Al-Nasr brigade,” the ministry said...

A Russian parliamentary committee has withdrawn its recommendation to ratify a new nuclear disarmament treaty with the United States after the results of the mid-term polls, an official said Wednesday. President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev signed the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in April but the accord has still to be ratified by the Russian lower house, the State Duma, or the US Senate. The passage of the treaty -- which envisages major nuclear weapons cuts -- through the Senate already looked complicated before the elections and the polls have seen Republicans pick up seats at...

ASTANA, March 4 (RIA Novosti) - Kazakhstan has signed a contract with Russia on the purchase of S-300 air defense missile systems, the Kazakh defense minister said on Wednesday. "We have recently signed a contract with Russia and are buying S-300 systems," Danial Akhmetov said. Last month, Kazakhstan announced plans to equip 10 battalions with S-300 air defense missile systems bought from Russia, with deliveries to begin in 2009. The latest version of the S-300 family is the S-300PMU2 Favorit, which has a range of up to 195 kilometers (about 120 miles) and can intercept aircraft and ballistic missiles at...

From Transatlantic Politics: Now president Medvedev says Georgia should be "demilitarized". And these are just the conditions made public. MOSCOW, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday a full settlement of the military conflict with Georgia was subject to two conditions, includingGeorgia moving its troops to pre-conflict positions. "We can discuss the question of a definitive settlement if two conditions are met," Medvedev said before meeting French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "First, Georgian troops should return to their initialposition and be partly demilitarised. Second, we need to sign abinding agreement on non-use of force." But other consequences...