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

Russia does not interfere in other countries' interior affairs, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday at the start of his first meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

• February 17, 2017

About 2,000 Belarussians staged one of the country's largest protests in recent years on Friday to voice their opposition to a law that imposes a tax on those not in full-time employment.

• February 17, 2017

U.S. President Donald Trump's defense secretary on Thursday said he did not see possible military collaboration with Russia now, in a blow to Moscow's hopes to mend ties with Washington after Trump's election.

• February 17, 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

Iran has again allowed Russian planes to use its airspace during recent operations in Syria, a senior Iranian security official was quoted as saying on Saturday.

• February 11, 2017

German leader Angela Merkel urged Russia's Vladimir Putin in a telephone call on Tuesday to use his influence on separatists in eastern Ukraine to stop the violence there, and the two agreed on the need for new ceasefire efforts, a German government spokesman said.

• February 7, 2017

Yemen is emerging as a test ground for U.S. President Donald Trump's forceful approach to al Qaeda and Iran, but his first actions there risk drawing his administration further into its convoluted two-year-old war.

• February 7, 2017