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

Euro zone countries will consider on Monday how to pay for the repair of their broken banks after health checks next year that are expected to uncover problems that have festered since the financial crisis.

• October 13, 2013

South Korea can cope with a U.S. debt stalemate if it is brief, and welcomes any boost Japan can get from Abenomics - unless Tokyo is using that policy to weaken the yen, the country's finance minister said on Thursday.

• October 11, 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

U.S. House of Representatives Republicans are considering signing on to a short-term increase in the government's borrowing authority to buy time for negotiations on broader policy measures, according to a Republican leadership aide.

• October 10, 2013

President Barack Obama refused to give ground in a fiscal confrontation with Republicans on Tuesday, saying he would negotiate on budget issues only if they agree to re-open the federal government and raise the debt limit with no conditions.

• October 9, 2013

As the U.S. government moved into the second week of a shutdown on Monday with no end in sight, a deadlocked U.S. Congress also confronted an October 17 deadline to increase the nation's borrowing power or risk default.

• October 7, 2013