Senate negotiations to bring a boiling fiscal crisis to an end showed signs of progress on Sunday, but there were no guarantees that the U.S. federal government shutdown was about to end or that a historic default would be avoided.

• October 13, 2013

Alibaba Group's plans to revolutionize China's retail industry, investing $16 billion in logistics and support by 2020, will open up China's vast interior and bring access to hundreds of millions of potential new customers.

• October 13, 2013

President Barack Obama and Republican leaders appeared ready to end a political crisis that has shuttered much of the U.S. government and pushed the country dangerously close to default after meeting at the White House on Thursday.

• October 11, 2013

China criticized U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday for giving tacit backing to the Philippines' stance in a tense maritime dispute, stressing again that it rejects Manila's attempt to seek arbitration.

• October 11, 2013

In Hosni Mubarak's final days in office in 2011, the world's gaze focused on Cairo, where hundreds of thousands of protesters demanded the resignation of one of the Arab world's longest serving autocrats.

• October 10, 2013

China accelerated plans to internationalize its currency on Thursday by agreeing to swap euros and yuan with the European Central Bank in a deal that is set to be China's second-largest to date.

• October 10, 2013

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will push Southeast Asian leaders and China to discuss the South China Sea dispute at an Asian summit, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday, despite Beijing's reluctance to address the issue at such meetings.

• October 9, 2013

Prime Minister David Cameron's promise to reform Britain's relations with the European Union is an ill-fated attempt to unite his party that could lead to the "economic suicide" of withdrawal from the bloc, his deputy will say on Tuesday.

• October 9, 2013