(MOSCOW) — Following in the footsteps of the U.S., Russia will abandon a centerpiece nuclear arms treaty but will only deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles if Washington does so, President Vladimir Putin said Saturday.

U.S. President Donald Trump accused Moscow on Friday of violating the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty with “impunity” by deploying banned missiles. Trump said in a statement that the U.S. will “move forward” with developing its own military response options to Russia’s deployment of banned cruise missiles that could target Western Europe.

Moscow has strongly denied any breaches and accused Washington of making false accusations in order to justify its pullout.

The collapse of the INF Treaty has raised fears of a repeat of a Cold War showdown in the 1980s, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union both deployed intermediate-range missiles on the continent. Such weapons were seen as particularly destabilizing as they only take a few minutes to reach their t..

(PARIS) — France’s yellow vest protesters were back on the streets Saturday to keep pressure on French President Emmanuel Macron’s government and denounce the large number of people injured in demonstrations they say is the result of police violence.

Multiple protests were planned in Paris and other cities to denounce Macron’s economic policies, seen by critics as favoring the rich, for the 12th straight weekend of demonstrations.

This week, demonstrators in the French capital want to pay tribute to the yellow vests injured during clashes with police.

The government says around 2,000 people have been injured in protests since the movement began Nov. 17, including at least four serious eye injuries. Separately, 10 people have died in road incidents related to yellow vest actions.

Several hundreds of demonstrators gathered at midday on a plaza in eastern Paris. Chanting anti-government slogans, they were heading toward the Republic plaza, in the northeast of the city center.

Among t..

(Bloomberg) — The embattled Nicolas Maduro regime halted plans to ship 20 tons of Venezuelan gold overseas as a growing international push to ring-fence the country’s dwindling hard assets unnerved those handling the transaction, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

The gold bars, which are worth about $850 million, had been weighed and separated in the central bank’s vaults for transportation, but will not be sent out anytime soon, the person said. The bank has suddenly transformed into a microcosm of the crisis: Some staffers, fearful of getting ensnared in U.S. sanctions and worn down by the crippling economic collapse, have begun to disregard orders, prompting senior managers loyal to Maduro to oust them.

The blocking of the 20-ton shipment comes just a week after the Bank of England denied Maduro’s request to withdraw $1.2 billion of gold stored there. While the destination of the gold and the nature of the transactions aren’t known with certainty, it’s unu..