Rating agencies are falling over each other to upgrade the euro zone's crisis countries, but with debt levels in most still rising and growth and reforms slow, the question is whether the new-found optimism has swung too far.

• June 1, 2014

Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed Kazakhstan and Belarus on Thursday into a new Eurasian Economic Union built to rival the United States, EU and China - but the absence of Ukraine undermined his dream of restoring Soviet glory days.

• May 30, 2014

A crude oil tanker at the center of a dispute between Iraqi Kurdistan and Baghdad has reversed course from its route towards the United States, ship-tracking data showed on Friday, indicating that the shipper may not have a buyer.

• May 30, 2014

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a telephone call with his French counterpart Francois Hollande on Friday, urged a halt to bloodshed in Ukraine and the start of talks between Kiev and eastern separatists.

• May 30, 2014

Stunning gains by anti-EU and populist parties in the European Parliament elections will prevent any new treaty on deeper euro zone integration for the foreseeable future and may tilt Europe's economic policy mix more towards expansion.

• May 29, 2014

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the general who toppled Egypt's first freely elected leader, took more than 90 percent of the vote in a presidential election, provisional results showed on Thursday, joining a long line of leaders drawn from the military.

• May 29, 2014

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a treaty with Kazakhstan and Belarus on Thursday creating a vast trading bloc which he hopes will challenge the economic might of the United States, the European Union and China.

• May 29, 2014

China will ease curbs on foreign investment in joint-venture hospitals, the government said on Wednesday, as it deepens a sweeping overhaul of its healthcare system aimed at cutting costs and sprucing up overloaded public services.

• May 28, 2014