European Union leaders rebuffed calls from southern European states on Friday for emergency action to tackle a wave of illegal migration from Africa despite the deaths of hundreds of people in Mediterranean boat disasters.

• October 26, 2013

North Korea repatriated six South Korean citizens and a corpse at a heavily defended border crossing on Friday, South Korea's Ministry of Unification said, in a rare humanitarian gesture amid persistent tensions between Pyongyang and Seoul.

• October 25, 2013

Turkey and Iraq, both concerned by the rise of al Qaeda in Syria, said on Friday their strained relations were improving and they would cooperate more closely to limit the spillover from Syria's civil war.

• October 25, 2013

Russia angrily denied U.S. media reports that the Russian director of a cultural exchange program may be recruiting Americans as spies, saying such allegations risked damaging ties between the two countries.

• October 25, 2013

NATO and Russia could play a role in eliminating Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles if they were asked to do so by the United Nations, said U.S., NATO and Russian officials on Wednesday.

• October 24, 2013

U.S. stock index futures fell on Wednesday, following four straight days of record highs on the S&P 500, amid concern over tightening financial conditions in China and weakness in European banks.

• October 23, 2013

China and India signed a deal on Wednesday aimed at soothing tension on their contested border, as the two nuclear-armed giants try to break a decades-old stalemate on overlapping claims to long remote stretches of the Himalayas.

• October 23, 2013

Activists protesting against China's rule over Tibet were being held after scaling scaffolding on the U.N. European headquarters in Geneva on Tuesday and unfurling a banner before a session examining China's human rights record.

• October 22, 2013