China will base a 5,000-tonne civilian patrol ship on one of the main islands it controls in the disputed South China Sea and begin regular patrols, an official newspaper said on Tuesday, a move likely to add fuel to territorial disputes with neighbors.

• January 21, 2014

Less than a month before the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russian investigators appealed to civilians on Tuesday to be more vigilant and help avert the threat of "terrorist" attacks.

• January 14, 2014

President Vladimir Putin has eased curbs on demonstrations in the Winter Olympics venue of Sochi in a gesture likely to burnish Russia's image ahead of an event dogged by security and human rights worries.

• January 4, 2014

China's increasingly sophisticated military will establish a joint operational command structure for its forces to improve coordination between different parts of the country's defense system, the official China Daily reported on Friday.

• January 3, 2014

A bomb ripped apart a bus in Volgograd on Monday, killing 14 people in the second deadly attack blamed on suicide bombers in the southern Russian city in 24 hours and raising fears of Islamist attacks on the Winter Olympics.

• December 30, 2013

One spring day in 2011 five people gathered around a small table at the Adlon Hotel in Berlin and hatched the beginnings of a plan to get former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky out of prison.

• December 27, 2013

Russia's Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will review two convictions against former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, including a ruling the Kremlin critic said was preventing him from returning to Russia despite a presidential pardon.

• December 26, 2013

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is sending an envoy to help seek a political solution to ethnic bloodletting in South Sudan and to liaise with neighboring countries, the European Commission said on Wednesday.

• December 26, 2013