US democracy is being degraded as Washington is using all means to maintain its global hegemony, even those measures that harm the American people, Moscow has said, reacting to the new round of anti-Russian sanctions.

"The American democracy is clearly being degraded. [Its only] desire is to ensure by all means that US global hegemony remains, including pressuring countries that conduct an independent line and speak [with] their own voice, unlike Washington's NATO allies," Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Moscow said the new US restrictions will be faced with "a firm response," urging Washington to "swiftly give up on the illusion that one can communicate with [Russia] using the language of sanctions."

An episode of Abby Martin's Empire Files, featuring journalist Max Blumenthal and spotlighting rising militarism in Israel, has been blocked by YouTube in 28 countries, including Israel and the UK, for violating "local laws."

"Just notified by YouTube that Abby Martin's interview with Max Blumenthal has been blocked from being viewed in 28 countries (including Israel) to 'comply with local laws.' Actions disabled & warnings for viewers elsewhere," the program's official Twitter account related on Thursday.

Entitled "Jewish-American on Israel's Fascism: 'No Hope For Change From Within'," the episode featured a discussion between Martin and journalist Max Blumenthal about the increasingly militaristic, racist attitude of Israel towards Palestinians.

"YouTube has claimed that it removed my interview on Israel-Palestine with Abby Martin to comply with laws in 28 countries. However, nothing I did or said in the discussion was even remotely illegal, even in countries with the strictest hate crime laws," Blumenthal told RT in an email. "My comments were based entirely on my extensive journalistic experience in the region and my analysis was clinical in nature. At no point did I denigrate anyone based on their faith or ethnicity."

The day after the UK government was left red-faced over its rush to blame Russia for the poisoning of an ex-double agent, 'evidence' is now being leaked to the press, left, right and center.

Prime Minister Theresa May's security minister has defended the decision not to fully share intelligence over the investigation into the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal with, among others, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Security minister Ben Wallace MP said the "circle" of those with access to highly sensitive information should be restricted.

"He is the leader of the opposition; he is not the government. He doesn't have the duty or the responsibility of protecting at the moment - and I hope he never does - the security of this country," he told BBC radio.

However, after Porton Down scientists blew holes in the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's claim that there was "no doubt" the nerve agent had been made in Russia, the press is gaining access to more leaks than a plumber.

The FBI has until April 11 to give Congress the unredacted document that launched the 2016 probe into the Trump campaign or face legal action in federal court, House Intelligence Committee chair Devin Nunes said.

Almost two years since the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign, it remains a secret on what basis that probe was launched. The portion of the bureau's "electronic communication" (EC) memo remains heavily redacted, according to Nunes (R-California).

The FBI informed the House Intelligence Committee last month that the bureau "would refuse to further unredact the EC based on its supposed sensitivity," according to the letter Nunes sent Wednesday to the Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and to FBI Director Christopher Wray.

"The document in question is not highly classified, and law enforcement sources have apparently not been shy about leaking to the press information that the Department and Bureau refuse to share with Congress," Nunes wrote.

Donald Trump has instructed the US Trade Representative to consider slapping China with an additional $100 billion in tariffs, accusing China of engaging in "unfair retaliation" instead of backing down to Washington's pressure.

"Rather than remedy its misconduct, China has chosen to harm our farmers and manufacturers. In light of China's unfair retaliation, I have instructed the USTR to consider whether $100 billion of additional tariffs would be appropriate under section 301 and, if so, to identify the products upon which to impose such tariffs," Trump's statement, released by the White House, said.

Earlier this week Beijing announced that it was considering a mirror response, after the United States Trade Representative (USTR) released a preliminary list of Chinese products, totaling some $50 billion, which it plans to slap with increased tariffs, under Trump's order.

Saudi Arabia's young leader - who recently compared Iran's Supreme Leader with Hitler - has, like many leaders before him, fallen into the trap of the illusion of power, the Iranian defense minister told RT.

RT caught up with General Amir Hatami during his visit to Moscow, where he headed the Iranian delegation to an international security conference. In an exclusive interview, he chided Saudi Arabian Crown Prince (and de facto ruler) Mohammad bin Salman, often referred to as "MbS" by the media.

The Saudi leader recently wasted no chance to criticize Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional arch-rival. Among other things, the crown prince said Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was worse than Nazi Germany's Adolf Hitler and predicted that the two nations may go to war in a decade.

"Those words have been said by a man who has little experience in state affairs," the Iranian official told RT. "Once he claimed he could resolve the situation in Yemen in just one week. Yemen is a poor country with little military strength. The war in Yemen is now in its fourth year, and it has become a quagmire for Saudi Arabia."

Hatami said Mohammad bin Salman's statements should be measured against his achievements, which were not particularly spectacular in Yemen. The country has been devastated by a civil war, in which Saudi Arabia is directly involved on one side and Iran is being accused of secretly arming and supporting the other. It has resulted in one of the biggest humanitarian disasters of modern times, with millions of people living under the threat of famine.

While there could be no way to accurately determine the origin of the toxin used against Sergei Skripal, the OPCW's reluctance to address Russia's concerns about the probe undermines its credibility [...] in the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Anton Utkin, a former UN chemical weapons inspector in Iraq, told RT.

Moscow's bid for a joint Russia-UK investigation into the Skripal case has been voted down at the extraordinary session of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on Wednesday, leaving Russia's concerns and questions about the Salisbury poisoning unanswered.


While Russia accused London of attempting to take advantage of the OPCW to support its own unsubstantiated claims, Dr. Anton Utkin, a former UN inspector in Iraq told RT that Wednesday's decision could undermine the only international mechanism designed to shield humanity from chemical weapons.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte isn't ruling out that the US might be very annoyed and consider his decision to procure weapons from China and Russia a threat, after Washington refused to supply Manila with arms.

The Philippines has been seeking modern weapons and small arms to step up combat against ISIS-linked Islamists, ever since Duterte assumed office in June 2016. However, Washington's refusal to sell assault rifles, over concerns about the country's human rights record amid the ongoing war on drugs, has forced Duterte to seek new suppliers. Manila, which has long depended on the US for weapons, turned to China and Russia to fill the gap.

"The fact is, the Americans really do not honor their word," Rodrigo Duterte said on Thursday, explaining his decision to look for alternative partners. Beijing and Moscow answered the call, even agreeing to provide some of the weapons for free, the Philippines leader told a group of farmers and fishermen gathered at a presidential palace reception.

"So I went to China... to ask [Chinese President Xi Jinping] to help us: 'I need arms,'" Duterte said during his long speech. "Xi Jinping said, 'No problem. Do not pay me, it's all yours.'"

"So I went to Russia... 'I came here to ask for your help! It's okay, I'll give it to you, free,'" Duterte paraphrased President Vladimir Putin's alleged response during their meeting last year.

Russia's UN envoy described the UK's attempt, without evidence, to pin the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter on Moscow as "theater of absurd", in his address updating the UNSC on the scandal.

The extraordinary meeting was requested by Moscow, following the announcement made by the secretive British Porton Down chemical laboratory, that it had not established that the nerve agent used to poison the Skripals was of Russian origin.

The top British officials explicitly cited the Porton Down laboratory when pinning the blame on Moscow, so following this revelation their theory started to fall apart, said Vasily Nebenzia, noting that the UK's secret agencies rushed to help the government, producing new claims based on some "intelligence data."

"I don't even know how to comment on this. It's some sort of the theater of absurd. You couldn't have come up with better fake story?" Nebenzia asked.

Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort authorised a secret media operation on behalf of Ukraine's former president featuring "black ops", "placed" articles in the Wall Street Journal and US websites and anonymous briefings against Hillary Clinton.

The project was designed to boost the reputation of Ukraine's then leader, Viktor Yanukovych. It was part of a multimillion-dollar lobbying effort carried out by Manafort on behalf of Yanukovych's embattled government, emails and documents reveal.

The strategies included:

• Proposing to rewrite Wikipedia entries to smear a key opponent of the then Ukrainian president.
• Setting up a fake thinktank in Vienna to disseminate viewpoints supporting Yanukovych.
• A social media blitz "aimed at targeted audiences in Europe and the US".
• Briefing journalists from the rightwing website Breitbart to attack Clinton when she was US secretary of state.

Manafort's Ukraine strategy anticipated later efforts by the Kremlin and its troll factory to use Twitter and Facebook to discredit Clinton and to help Trump win the 2016 US election. The material seen by the Guardian dates from 2011 to 2013.


Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating claims of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, has indicted Manafort on multiple counts. Manafort is accused of "laundering profits" from his lobbying work in Ukraine, carried out over a period of a decade for Yanukovych and his political party.