U.N. chemical weapons inspectors in Syria met and took samples from victims of an apparent poison gas attack in a rebel-held suburb of Damascus on Monday after the U.N. team themselves survived a sniper attack that hit a vehicle in their convoy.

• August 26, 2013

Senior U.S. and Russian diplomats will meet in The Hague next Wednesday to discuss ending Syria's two-year civil war, the State Department said on Thursday, in what would be the first such meeting since reports of a deadly chemical attack outside the capital, Damascus.

• August 24, 2013

The United States on Friday was repositioning naval forces in the Mediterranean to give President Barack Obama the option for an armed strike on Syria, although officials cautioned that Obama had made no decision on military action.

• August 24, 2013

Russia urged the Syrian government and the United Nations on Thursday to agree on a visit by chemical weapons experts to the site of an alleged gas attack by troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad that killed hundreds of people.

• August 22, 2013

Two Russian bombers briefly entered Japan's air space near its major southern island of Kyushu on Thursday, prompting Japan to scramble its fighter jets and lodge a protest, the Japanese government said, but Russia denied any intrusion.

• August 22, 2013

Syria's opposition accused government forces of gassing hundreds of people on Wednesday by firing rockets that released deadly fumes over rebel-held Damascus suburbs, killing men, women and children as they slept.

• August 21, 2013

Egypt's deputy prime minister will propose a way out of a bloody confrontation between the security forces and the Muslim Brotherhood of deposed president Mohamed Mursi when the cabinet discusses the crisis on Sunday.

• August 18, 2013

Boats carrying about 20 members of a Japanese nationalist group headed back to port on Sunday after sailing near tiny islands in the East China Sea that are at the center of a dispute between Japan and China.

• August 18, 2013