President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's deputy Monday said that Iran would be willing to address the dispute over its nuclear programme in forthcoming talks, even though the Iranian leader has so far declined to discuss it with world powers.

• October 19, 2010

Russian troops have withdrawn from a Georgian town which they had occupied since a bitter war between the two countries in 2008.

• October 19, 2010

Iran and Armenia plan to start building two major hydro-electric stations on their border early next year, the energy ministers of the two countries said in Yerevan.

• October 18, 2010

Angela Merkel and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev are due to arrive in the French seaside town of Deauville today for a summit on European security hosted by President Nicolas Sarkozy.

• October 18, 2010

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez visited Belarus on October 16 promising President Alyaksandr Lukashenka that Venezuela could fill Belarus's oil refineries "for the next 200 years."

• October 18, 2010

So – Keston has existed for 40 years – over half my life – and half of that time (exactly 20 years) I’ve  been living in    Oxford. It’s almost unbelievable to reflect that the Berlin Wall came down just after I came to St Edmund Hall, Oxford, with a visiting fellowship: my temporary absence from Keston College seemed to inaugurate the sensational collapse of communism. READ MORE

• October 18, 2010

President Hugo Chavez, on his ninth visit to Russia in eight years, says he wants to reduce dependence on oil and gas. No details on cost or time are disclosed.

• October 16, 2010

Gazprom CEO Aleksei Miller held talks with Prime Minister Emil Boc, Economics Minister Ion Ariton, and other officials, on Romania’s possible participation in Gazprom projects. Adriean Videanu, economics minister until six weeks ago and (unusually in Romania) an active proponent of ties with Gazprom, attended the October 13 talks in his new capacity as first vice-chairman of the governing Liberal Democrat Liberal Party.

• October 15, 2010