The European Union sought to calm fears in countries like Britain, France and Germany that they face a mass influx of Romanians and Bulgarians following the lifting of restrictions on Wednesday, a change that risks fuelling anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe.

• January 2, 2014

Ending Taiwan's political standoff with mainland China is necessary to boost Taiwan's sagging economy and to help it integrate more effectively with the region, the island's president, Ma Ying-jeou, said.

• January 2, 2014

A bomb ripped apart a bus in Volgograd on Monday, killing 14 people in the second deadly attack blamed on suicide bombers in the southern Russian city in 24 hours and raising fears of Islamist attacks on the Winter Olympics.

• December 30, 2013

As U.S. and European banks drop out of commodity trading, Russian, Chinese and Gulf state firms are filling the gap in an attempt to exert greater control over the pricing of the raw materials on which their economies so heavily depend.

• December 30, 2013

China said on Monday that its leaders will not meet Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe after his visit to a shrine seen by critics as a symbol of Tokyo's wartime aggression, underscoring the deteriorating ties between Asia's two biggest economies.

• December 30, 2013

Tens of thousands of Ukrainians have gathered again in Kiev in a fresh show of force by the month-old anti-government protest movement.

• December 29, 2013

More than a million Americans will lose their unemployment benefits after an emergency federal programme expired on Saturday.

• December 29, 2013

Uzbek President Islam Karimov has signed a law on Uzbekistan joining the free trade zone of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

• December 29, 2013