India is speeding up a navy modernization program and leaning on its neighbors to curb Chinese submarine activity in the Indian Ocean, as nations in the region become increasingly jittery over Beijing's growing undersea prowess.
The European Union has imposed sanctions on the organizers of rebel elections in eastern Ukraine this month, the bloc said on Saturday, hitting the separatists and their organizations with asset freezes and travel bans.
Ukraine's parliament approved Arseny Yatseniuk for a new term as prime minister on Thursday in a ceremony that countered reports of high-level disunity in a message to Russia over its backing of separatists in the country's east.
After nine months of non-stop German diplomacy to defuse the crisis in Ukraine, Chancellor Angela Merkel decided in mid-November that a change of tack was needed.
Iranian officials say they can turn to Beijing and Moscow if talks in Vienna fail to end Western sanctions, but with oil prices falling, China's economy slowing and Russia in its own sanctions-induced slump, Tehran's "plan B" hardly looks ideal.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the West on Saturday of trying to use sanctions imposed on Moscow in the Ukraine crisis to seek "regime change" in Russia.
President Vladimir Putin may not be as popular as opinion polls suggest in Russia because the public has only limited access to information and the media is tightly controlled, members of the feminist punk protest band Pussy Riot said.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Friday condemned Russia's behaviour in Ukraine as "unacceptable" and said Moscow should abide by a September peace deal and pull its military forces out of the country.
Russia warned the United States on Thursday against supplying arms to Ukrainian forces fighting pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, hours before U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden was due to arrive in Kiev.
Europe's foreign ministers will meet on Monday to assess the situation in Ukraine and whether further steps including additional sanctions were needed against Russia, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said on Saturday.
A showdown between Western leaders and Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely at the G20 summit in Australia starting on Saturday, following fresh reports of Russian troops pouring into eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian government forces have no intention of renouncing a ceasefire in the separatist-held east of the country, a military spokesman said on Thursday.
Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt will play Edward Snowden in a movie directed by Oliver Stone about the former National Security Agency contractor who blew the whistle on the U.S government's mass surveillance programs, the film's backers said on Monday.
NATO is concerned about convoys of trucks taking artillery and supplies into east Ukraine from Russia, and wants to see international borders respected, the supreme allied commander said on Tuesday.
East Ukraine's rebel stronghold Donetsk was pummeled on Sunday by the heaviest shelling in a month, and the OSCE said it spotted an armored column of troops without insignia in rebel territory that Kiev said proved Moscow had sent reinforcements.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday that the United States and Russia had agreed to exchange information about the situation on the Russia-Ukraine border.
Ukraine's military accused Russia on Friday of sending a column of 32 tanks and truckloads of troops into the country's east to support pro-Russian separatists fighting government forces.
U.S. prosecutors have launched a money-laundering investigation into a member of Russian President Vladimir Putin's inner circle, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The world's biggest companies disclose little or no financial details about their operations abroad, according to a report by Transparency International, which singled out Chinese companies but pointed to U.S. tech giants like Amazon and Google as well.
A memorial to Apple Inc founder Steve Jobs has been dismantled in the Russian city of St Petersburg after the man who succeeded him at the helm of the company, Tim Cook, came out as gay.
China and Russia have thwarted an international attempt to create the world’s largest ocean sanctuary in Antarctica as both nations eye the region’s rich reserves of fish and krill.
