European Union countries will agree next month to talks with China on a pact making it easier to do business, possibly paving the way for a free-trade deal between two of the world's biggest markets, EU officials said on Tuesday.

• September 18, 2013

Russia denounced U.N. investigators' findings on a poison gas attack in Syria as preconceived and tainted by politics on Wednesday, stepping up its criticism of a report Western nations said proved President Bashar al-Assad's forces were responsible.

• September 18, 2013

French energy major Total (TOTF.PA) is in talks to join "tight" or hard to access oil projects in Russia, which by some estimates hold the world's largest unconventional oil reserves, a Total executive was quoted on Tuesday as saying.

• September 17, 2013

China said on Tuesday that it would take a serious look at a report by U.N. investigators which confirmed the use of sarin nerve agent in an August 21 gas attack outside the Syrian capital.

• September 17, 2013

Bashar al-Assad's chemical weapons bargain with Russia and the United States offers another political and military lifeline to the Syrian president, just two years after he was dismissed in Washington as a "dead man walking".

• September 16, 2013

European policymakers have higher hopes than expectations of change in German policies after a general election next Sunday that has kept much European business on hold for months.

• September 16, 2013

Spending cuts to European Union food aid programs could leave Portugal's growing ranks of poor with even emptier plates.

• September 16, 2013

U.S.-Russian talks on eliminating Syria's chemical weapons program have reached a "pivotal point," a U.S. official said, and both nations said on Friday they wanted to renew efforts to negotiate a peaceful end to the war in Syria.

• September 14, 2013