A Ukrainian government order to cut off trade with the Russian-annexed Ukrainian region of Crimea has come into effect.

• January 19, 2016

Poland wants NATO to agree to deploy 'substantial' numbers of forces and equipment in central and eastern Europe to ensure the region's security in the face of a more aggressive Russia, President Andrzej Duda said on Monday.

• January 18, 2016

Iran ordered a sharp increase in oil output on Monday to take immediate advantage of the lifting of international sanctions, and some foreign firms raced to snap up deals as Tehran emerges from years of international isolation.

• January 18, 2016

For China, whose President Xi Jinping is already taking an increasingly muscular approach to claims in the East and South China Sea, the question of Taiwan trumps any other of its territorial assertions in terms of sensitivity and importance.

• January 17, 2016

Israel bristled on Sunday at the lifting of international sanctions on Iran and vowed to flag up any violations of its arch-foe's nuclear restrictions while drawing on U.S. defense aid to prepare for a possible military face-off in the future.

• January 17, 2016

Three Iranian-Americans left Tehran for a U.S. base in Germany on Sunday under a prisoner swap following the lifting of most international sanctions on Iran under a deal that President Barack Obama said had cut off Tehran's path to a nuclear bomb.

• January 17, 2016

Oil prices plummeted to $29 a barrel Friday on the likely resumption soon of Iranian oil exports into an already flooded market as international sanctions against Iran are lifted, dragging equity indices around the world sharply lower.

• January 15, 2016

Russia's Defense Ministry said on Friday a new objective of Russian forces in Syria was to provide humanitarian aid.

• January 15, 2016