Syrian activists called on Sunday for the Assad government to engage in serious talks on political transition and for the United Nations to strengthen the fragile ceasefire as violence engulfed parts of the country.

• February 26, 2017

The PLA Navy is likely to secure significant new funding in China's upcoming defense budget as Beijing seeks to check U.S. dominance of the high seas and step up its own projection of power around the globe.

• February 26, 2017

Opposing sides in the Syrian war came face-to-face in U.N. peace talks for the first time in three years on Thursday, to hear U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura implore them to find a way out of the almost six-year-old conflict.

• February 23, 2017

China denied on Thursday that it had increased its troop presence on the border with North Korea after the murder of the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Malaysia.

• February 23, 2017

U.S. Republican senators plan to introduce legislation to impose further sanctions on Iran, accusing it of violating U.N. Security Council resolutions by testing ballistic missiles and acting to "destabilise" the Middle East, a U.S. senator said Sunday.

• February 19, 2017

China will suspend all imports of coal from North Korea starting Feb. 19, the country's commerce ministry said in a notice posted on its website on Saturday, as part of its efforts to implement United Nations sanctions against the country.

• February 19, 2017

With the suspension of all North Korean coal imports, China has wielded a big stick against its reclusive neighbor, but there is no sign it will cut off all critical links and Beijing is still promoting talks to solve the dispute over Pyongyang's program to develop nuclear weapons.

• February 19, 2017

China and India accounted for more than half of the total number of global deaths attributable to air pollution in 2015, researchers said in a study published on Tuesday.

• February 14, 2017