President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia should consider recapitalizing state gas company Gazprom after a $400 billion deal with China which will require multi-billion-dollar investments in pipelines and new fields.

• June 4, 2014

Euro zone inflation fell unexpectedly in May, all-but sealing the case for the European Central Bank to act this week with a batch of measures to stimulate the economy and keep it from the clutches of deflation. Annual consumer inflation in the 18 countries sharing the euro fell to 0.5 percent in May from 0.7 percent in April, the EU's statistics office Eurostat said on Tuesday. Economists polled by Reuters had expected inflation to remain steady.

• June 3, 2014

Rating agencies are falling over each other to upgrade the euro zone's crisis countries, but with debt levels in most still rising and growth and reforms slow, the question is whether the new-found optimism has swung too far.

• June 1, 2014

Stunning gains by anti-EU and populist parties in the European Parliament elections will prevent any new treaty on deeper euro zone integration for the foreseeable future and may tilt Europe's economic policy mix more towards expansion.

• May 29, 2014

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the general who toppled Egypt's first freely elected leader, took more than 90 percent of the vote in a presidential election, provisional results showed on Thursday, joining a long line of leaders drawn from the military.

• May 29, 2014

China will ease curbs on foreign investment in joint-venture hospitals, the government said on Wednesday, as it deepens a sweeping overhaul of its healthcare system aimed at cutting costs and sprucing up overloaded public services.

• May 28, 2014

Asian stocks erased early modest gains on Tuesday, while the euro steadied but remained vulnerable after overnight comments from the European Central Bank chief heightened expectations of easing steps in the euro zone.

• May 27, 2014

South Asia's bitterest rivals have an opportunity to turn a page in their history of troubled relations, Pakistan's prime minister said on Monday after he and other regional leaders arrived for the swearing-in ceremony of India's Narendra Modi.

• May 26, 2014