Australian police have agreed to assist China in the extradition and seizure of assets of corrupt Chinese officials who have fled with hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit funds, the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported on Monday.

• October 20, 2014

When Europe announced its latest health check of top banks early last year it promised a "comprehensive assessment" of how well prepared they were to withstand another financial crisis.

• October 20, 2014

China's ruling Communist Party will likely never open all the files on its recent painful past, including the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward, and sees no need to reassess those periods, a senior party historian said on Monday.

• October 20, 2014

Ukraine's and Russia's leaders have reached a preliminary agreement on a price for gas supplies this winter but Kiev may need international help to pay, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Saturday.

• October 19, 2014

Resuming cyber security cooperation between China and the United States would be difficult because of "mistaken U.S. practices", China's top diplomat told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

• October 19, 2014

Germany's BND foreign intelligence agency has concluded that pro-Russian rebels are to blame for the downing of Malaysia Airline MH17 in Ukraine in July, Der Spiegel weekly reported on Sunday, the first European agency to say so.

• October 19, 2014

Russia and Ukraine made progress on Friday towards resolving a dispute over gas supplies in time for winter, but European leaders said Moscow still had to do much more to prop up a fragile ceasefire and end fighting in eastern Ukraine.

• October 17, 2014

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told parliament on Thursday that Europe must push ahead with efforts to cut public deficits and improve competitiveness because the euro zone debt crisis has not yet been overcome and its causes have not been eliminated.

• October 17, 2014