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

Up to 1,000 coal miners rallied on Wednesday in support of armed pro-Russian separatists who are battling Ukrainian forces in defense of their self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic" (DNR) in eastern Ukraine.

• May 28, 2014

U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday outlined a plan to withdraw all but 9,800 American troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year and pull out the rest by the end of 2016, ending more than a decade of military engagement triggered by the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

• May 28, 2014

Asian stocks erased early modest gains on Tuesday, while the euro steadied but remained vulnerable after overnight comments from the European Central Bank chief heightened expectations of easing steps in the euro zone.

• May 27, 2014

Vietnam and China traded accusations on Tuesday over the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat not far from where China has parked an oil rig in the disputed South China Sea, as tensions fester between the two countries over the giant drilling platform.

• May 27, 2014

Ukraine's state gas company Naftogaz said on Tuesday no real progress was made with Russia's Gazprom over its gas debt or on price in talks in Berlin aimed at settling a dispute that threatens to disrupt gas flows to western Europe.

• May 27, 2014

Ukraine launched air strikes and a paratrooper assault against pro-Russian rebels who seized an airport on Monday, even as its newly elected leader vowed to reassert control in the east and refused to negotiate with "terrorists".

• May 26, 2014

South Asia's bitterest rivals have an opportunity to turn a page in their history of troubled relations, Pakistan's prime minister said on Monday after he and other regional leaders arrived for the swearing-in ceremony of India's Narendra Modi.

• May 26, 2014