Russia banned pork imports from Belarus on Friday, stepping up a diplomatic and trade war over the arrest of a Russian businessman and threatening to deepen the isolation of its former Soviet ally.

• August 30, 2013

Major central banks' reassurances that interest rates will stay low for some time are giving markets "a certain security", a European Central Bank policymaker said on Thursday.

• August 29, 2013

Greece's international lenders will press Athens next month to transfer state-owned real estate to a holding company managed by the euro zone to spur flagging privatization efforts, officials said on Thursday.

• August 29, 2013

More than two years into Syria's civil war, President Bashar al-Assad is settling his bills for Russian arms orders through the Russian banking system to try to shore up ties with his most powerful ally, according to a Russian arms industry source.

• August 29, 2013

The U.N. Security Council should wait for inspectors to present their report on an alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria before considering a response, a senior Russian diplomat said on Wednesday.

• August 28, 2013

Angela Merkel is relishing the chance to debate the euro zone crisis with challenger Peer Steinbrueck in their only TV duel of the election campaign, despite a row over Greek aid that has put her government on the defensive, her campaign chief said.

• August 28, 2013

China on Tuesday brushed aside calls from Japan to hold a leaders' summit as "grandstanding", while Japan's finance minister said Tokyo should make clear it would use its navy to defend islands at the core of a dispute with Beijing.

• August 28, 2013

Russia's first civil plane since the fall of the Soviet Union bagged a clutch of deals with mainly domestic buyers on the first day of an airshow near Moscow, as the country battles to revive its aircraft industry amid stiff foreign competition.

• August 27, 2013