NATO members in Central and Eastern Europe need to beef up defense spending after cutting it for the past five years while Russia has sharply increased its military budget, the head of the Western alliance said on Thursday.

• May 15, 2014

He is a man with three names, sought by Ukrainian intelligence as the top Russian operative in the separatist east. He moves through the streets in a black Mercedes, his face with pencil moustache hidden behind tinted windows, and his aim is to "destroy" Ukrainian forces that venture onto his territory.

• May 15, 2014

Seventy years after their families' mass deportation under Soviet leader Josef Stalin, the Crimean Tatars are in a quandary: should they cooperate with their homeland's new Russian authorities or resist them?

• May 15, 2014

Rioting broke out at industrial zones in southern Vietnam during protests by thousands of workers angered by Chinese oil drilling in a contested area of the South China Sea, officials said on Wednesday.

• May 14, 2014

President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday Russia's defense industry should stop relying on foreign components and become self-sufficient following Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over the crisis in Ukraine.

• May 14, 2014

Europe is partly to blame for the crisis in Ukraine although this is no excuse for Russian behavior towards the former Soviet republic, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's deputy said on Wednesday.

• May 14, 2014

Russia said on Tuesday new European Union sanctions will hinder efforts to defuse the crisis in Ukraine and urged the West to persuade Kiev to hold discussions on the country's future structure before a May 25 presidential election.

• May 13, 2014

President Barack Obama's decision on possible changes to U.S. deportation policy sets up an election-year skirmish that could help Democrats win points with their political base while irritating Republicans who are open to immigration reform.

• May 13, 2014