China has offered more than $3 billion in loans and aid to neighbors Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand and Laos to improve infrastructure and production, and to fight poverty, state media reported on Saturday.

• December 21, 2014

In a muddy clearing in southern Sumatra, a portable diesel power plant hammers away alongside a wellhead, struggling to extract crude from a depleted reservoir that lies below farmland and rubber plantations.

• December 19, 2014

Canada is set to sign a deal with China to return ill-gotten assets seized from those suspected of economic crimes, the official China Daily reported on Monday, as Beijing works to track down corrupt officials who have fled overseas.

• December 15, 2014

China on Friday opened a key section of a massive and ambitious plan to transport water from wetter central and southern parts of the country up to its arid north, including the capital Beijing, state media reported.

• December 12, 2014

China has told its banks to lend more in the final months of 2014 and relaxed enforcement of loan-to-deposit ratios to expand credit, sources told Reuters, as Beijing prepares to release data that could confirm the relentless slowing of its economy.

• December 11, 2014

China's foreign ministry condemned on Tuesday a report by the U.S. State Department about China's claims in the South China Sea, saying they went against Washington's promises not to take sides in the dispute.

• December 9, 2014

Syrian state television said on Sunday that Israeli jets had bombed areas near Damascus international airport and in the town of Dimas, near the border with Lebanon.

• December 7, 2014

U.S. retailer Best Buy Co Inc (BBY.N) said on Thursday it will sell its struggling China business, Five Star, to domestic real estate firm Zhejiang Jiayuan Group in order to focus on its North American operations.

• December 4, 2014