Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Tehran on Friday to discuss improvement of economic and political ties after lifting of international sanctions because of Iran's disputed nuclear program, state TV said.

• January 22, 2016

The European Central bank will "review and possibly reconsider" it monetary policy stance when it next meets in March because of weaker-than-expected inflation dynamics in the euro zone, ECB President Mario Draghi said on Thursday.

• January 22, 2016

Ukraine plans soon to launch a fresh diplomatic initiative to recover the Crimean peninsula from Russia which annexed it in 2014, Finance Minister Natalia Yaresko told Reuters on Wednesday.

• January 20, 2016

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

• January 19, 2016

Politicians and business leaders gathering in the Swiss Alps this week face an increasingly divided world, with the poor falling further behind the super-rich and political fissures in the United States, Europe and the Middle East running deeper than at any time in decades.

• January 18, 2016

U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump called for higher tariffs on Chinese goods if China does not stop allowing its yuan currency to devalue.

• January 15, 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

Love him or hate him, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military intervention in Syria unquestionably upended Middle Eastern politics. Putin supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, established several military bases in Syria, created a de-facto Russian-Shi’ite axis, confronted Turkey and forced the West to re-engage with him.

• January 14, 2016