News

Russia launched air strikes in Syria on Wednesday in its biggest Middle East intervention in decades, plunging the four-year-old civil war into a volatile new phase as President Vladimir Putin moved forcefully to stake out influence in the unstable region.

China has arrested two Japanese for spying, the Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday, and Japan said the two had been held since May and diplomats were doing all they could to help.

Greenpeace called on Brazilian authorities on Tuesday to reject an environmental assessment for a hydroelectric dam on the Tapajos River in the Amazon because it was a "marketing tool" that disregarded the indigenous people living along its banks.