Fire sent carbon monoxide coursing through a coal mine in western Turkey within minutes, killing close to 300 workers, but the exact cause of the country's worst industrial disaster remains unclear, the mine operator said on Friday.

• May 16, 2014

Iran and six world powers are making little progress in arduous talks on ending their dispute over Tehran's nuclear program, a senior U.S. official said on Friday, fanning doubt about the prospects for a breakthrough by a self-imposed July deadline.

• May 16, 2014

The German diplomat moderating 'round table' talks to promote political reconciliation in Ukraine said on Friday the first meetings this week had included members of pro-Russian separatist groups such as the mayor of the eastern city of Donetsk, making it a meaningful process.

• May 16, 2014

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