Moscow expressed skepticism over the results of nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers which ended on Wednesday, with a senior Russian diplomat saying the two sides were "kilometers apart" in their approaches.

• October 17, 2013

World stocks and the dollar marked time on Wednesday as cautious investors focused on hopes that U.S. politicians would strike a last-minute deal to prevent the country defaulting on its debt.

• October 16, 2013

A month of combat in the U.S. Congress over government spending showed signs on Monday of giving way to a Senate deal to reopen shuttered federal agencies and prevent an economically damaging default on federal debt.

• October 15, 2013

China denounced on Monday a decision by a Spanish criminal court to indict former Chinese president Hu Jintao for genocide as part of an investigation into whether his government committed abuses in Tibet.

• October 14, 2013

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

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