Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday dismissed the U.S. decision to put Iran "on notice" over its missile tests and called President Donald Trump the "real face" of American corruption.

• February 7, 2017

China on Monday welcomed U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis' suggestion that diplomacy should be the priority in the South China Sea, and that major U.S. military action was not being considered to contend with China's assertive behavior there.

• February 6, 2017

The Kremlin said on Monday it did not agree with U.S. President Donald Trump's assessment of Iran as "the number one terrorist state" and a Russian diplomat said any U.S. attempt to reopen an Iran nuclear deal would inflame tensions in the Middle East.

• February 6, 2017

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen kicked off her presidential campaign on Saturday with a promise to shield voters from globalization and make their country "free", hoping to profit from political turmoil to score a Donald Trump-style upset.

• February 4, 2017

A Revolutionary Guards commander said Iran would use its missiles if its security is under threat, as the elite force defied new U.S. sanctions on its missile programme by holding a military exercise on Saturday.

• February 4, 2017

U.S. President Donald Trump's pick for ambassador to China, Terry Branstad, said he would help increase trade in a "win-win" for both countries, Chinese state media reported, amid concerns over protectionist talk from the new U.S. administration.

• February 3, 2017

Russian prosecutors said on Friday they were seeking a suspended five-year sentence for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is on trial for embezzlement, a punishment that would stop him from running for the presidency in 2018.

• February 3, 2017

Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Friday a Russian move to create border zones near his country's frontier looked like a political attack and that Moscow had threatened to halve oil supplies to Minsk.

• February 3, 2017