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

North Korea said on Tuesday its military would be put on high alert and be ready to launch operations, stepping up tension after weeks of rhetoric against the United States and South Korea, whom it accuses of instigating hostility.

• October 8, 2013

China's Foreign Ministry dismissed concerns about Turkey's decision to co-produce a missile defense system with a Chinese firm, saying on Tuesday that the United States and others were needlessly politicizing a purely commercial deal.

• October 8, 2013

Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Monday he expected a "long and tortuous process" of world economic recovery, while China's economic growth rate of about 7 percent was "within a reasonable and expected range".

• October 7, 2013

China will replace four coal-burning heating plants in the capital Beijing with natural gas fired ones by the end of next year as it steps up efforts to clean up pollution, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.

• October 5, 2013

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons, even it has to stand alone against the threat.

• October 2, 2013

After a quarter century of Middle Eastern land wars and a sharp fall in big powers' naval spending after the Cold War, sea power is back in vogue in response to the rise of China and Western reluctance to deploy ground troops in conflicts like Syria.

• October 1, 2013