BRUSSELS - The European Central Bank is under pressure to unveil new steps to stabilize the euro zone when it meets on Thursday as the currency bloc battles a crippling debt crisis that has stoked contagion fears in the United States and Asia.
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SEOUL - China, pushed again by Washington to bring North Korea to heel after last week's artillery attack on the South, told Pyongyang their relationship had withstood international "tempests".
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WASHINGTON - A presidential commission trying to balance the U.S. budget on Wednesday softened a proposed tax overhaul to win broader support for its bold plan to slash the $1.3 trillion federal deficit.
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WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's top economic advisers sought to break a deadlock over taxes with congressional leaders on Wednesday, haggling over how to extend Bush-era rates while the country struggles with sky-high debt.
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VIENNA - U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Yukiya Amano suggested before he took office last year that he was "solidly in the U.S. court" on key issues including Iran, U.S. diplomatic cables cited by the Guardian newspaper said.
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MUMBAI - The number may be huge -- up to $39 billion lost in one of India's biggest corruption cases -- but the damage to India's position as an investment star may be in the regulatory backlash.
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BRASILIA - Brazil's Congress on Wednesday approved a legal overhaul of the country's oil sector, clearing the way for Brazil to expand development of vast offshore oil fields it hopes will turn it into a global energy exporter.
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CANCUN, Mexico - Developing countries accused Japan on Wednesday of breaking a pledge to extend a U.N. pact for fighting global warming beyond 2012 and said that climate talks in Mexico would fail unless Tokyo backed down.
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CAIRO - Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the biggest opposition bloc in the outgoing parliament, and a smaller party withdrew on Wednesday from an election they said was rigged by thugs, ballot box stuffing and other ploys.
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ASTANA - The United States called on Europe's main security watchdog on Wednesday to prove its mettle by giving more support to the war in Afghanistan and working to resolve simmering conflicts across the former Soviet Union.
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ABIDJAN - President Laurent Gbagbo's party accused rebels in the north of Ivory Coast on Wednesday of trying to steal a presidential run-off on behalf of the opposition and rejected still unpublished results.
