The New Development Bank established by the BRICS emerging nations plans to invest in infrastructure projects in those countries and is considering hydropower and electricity investments, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said.

• February 26, 2016

Iran briefly exceeded a limit set by a deal with major powers under which sanctions against it were lifted, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday, but Tehran then came back within the permitted bounds.

• February 26, 2016

Last July, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad seemed to be losing his battle against rebel forces. Speaking to supporters in Damascus, he acknowledged his army's heavy losses.

• February 26, 2016

The United States and China have agreed on a draft resolution that would expand U.N. Security Council sanctions against North Korea over its latest nuclear test and hope to put it to a vote in the coming days, council diplomats said on Wednesday.

• February 25, 2016

Russian warplanes bombed Syrian rebel-held areas in northwestern Syria and government forces pounded a suburb of the capital on Thursday, ahead of a planned halt to fighting which rebels predicted Damascus and Moscow would ignore.

• February 25, 2016

The United States, which is worried by China's military buildup to assert dominance in the South China Sea, will increase freedom-of-navigation operations there, a senior Pentagon official said on Wednesday.

• February 24, 2016

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday he feared a U.S.-Russian ceasefire plan would do little more than benefit Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and accused the West, Russia and Iran of only seeking to further their own interests.

• February 24, 2016

Kurdistan's oil exports to world markets are set to be suspended for a second week running, a shipping source said, a move that will deprive Iraq's semi-autonomous region of its main revenue stream as the security situation in southeast Turkey worsens.

• February 23, 2016