The standard policy prescription for Washington’s dealings with Russia is situational: Agree to disagree on certain issues, but try to find areas where cooperation is possible. The areas where the two nations can cooperate, however, have drastically diminished over the past week.

What if the United States went to war and nobody here even noticed? The question is absurd, isn’t it? And yet, this almost perfectly describes what actually happened this past week. While many Americans, myself included, were all hypnotized by the bizarre spectacle of the Republican nominee for president, a US navy destroyer fired a barrage of cruise missiles at three radar sites controlled by the rebel Houthi movement in Yemen. This attack marked the first time the US has fought the rebels directly in Yemen’s devastating civil war.

The world faces cold-war-era threat levels, Sir John Sawers, the former head of MI6, has said, due to the west vacating the stage in Syria and failing to recognise that the growth of Russian military power over the past 15 years required the development of a new strategic relationship with Moscow. “We are moving into an era that is as dangerous, if not more dangerous, as the cold war because we do not have that focus on a strategic relationship between Moscow and Washington,” Sawers told the BBC on Wednesday.

Earlier this year, we wrote about Australia's refusal to allow researchers to check e-voting software being used in that country. The situation in Argentina seems to be even worse.

The United Nations Humanitarian chief concluded a three-day mission to Yemen calling the massive demand for humanitarian aid “outrageous”.

The United States on Monday suspended talks with Russia on trying to end the violence in Syria and accused Moscow of not living up to its commitments under a ceasefire agreement.

A Dutch-led investigation has concluded that the powerful surface-to-air missile system that was used to shoot down a Malaysia Airlines plane over Ukraine two years ago, killing all 298 on board, was trucked in from Russia at the request of Russian-backed separatists and returned to Russia the same night.

Right-wing nationalists launder a conspiracy theory into official truth.

The Law and Justice Party is nurturing right-wing movements it may not be able to control.

Anti-refugee activists clad in black quickly scaled the 85-foot-high Brandenburg Gate in the heart of Germany’s capital and attached a giant banner atop the monument reading: “Secure the borders — Secure the future.” The early-morning takeover of the country’s best-known landmark a week ago didn’t last long: Dozens of heavily armed police brought down the 15 activists after less than an hour. And Berlin Mayor Michael Mueller later called the protest “despicable.”

Extremist Pauline Hanson’s comeback in political life is another example of the rise of xenophobic populism around the world. She wants to ban Muslim immigration, install security cameras in mosques and withdraw from the United Nations’ refugee convention. A few years ago, such policies were on the outermost fringes of Australian political life. Now, the former fish-and-chips-shop owner pushing them is a newly-elected member of Australia’s Senate who gets respectful treatment from the prime minister.

Congressional investigators trying to uncover the trail of $1.3 billion in payments to Iran might want to focus on 13 large, identical sums that Treasury paid to the State Department under the generic heading of settling Foreign Claims.

There will be no bloc of “emerging economies” rising up to challenge the Western order. But what comes next may be more chaotic and dangerous.

Olympics, plots, purges and late-summer dread descend on Moscow.

Maybe he’ll really listen—and start to understand how complex the issues really are. Or perhaps he’ll just warn darkly of threats that can’t be fact-checked.

The Republican candidate’s pro-Russia comments have become must-see TV in both countries — and they’re demoralizing the Ukrainians.

The holiday period is over, now Theresa May has to deliver.

Oxfam have criticized the UK government after an agreement was made with the Saudi Arabian government to sell the country arms.

Used extensively in the Soviet era, political murders are again playing a prominent role in the Kremlin’s foreign policy, the most brutal instrument in an expanding repertoire of intimidation tactics intended to silence or otherwise intimidate critics at home and abroad.

Trump’s meandering opinions are on par with the manipulations that allowed Russian forces to slip so easily into Ukraine.