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Assad vows to hand over arsenal

Syrian president tells US network it will take at least a year and cost $1bn

McCain responds to Putin's article

US Senator John McCain on Thursday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of allying himself with tyrants and ruling through violence and repression, in a scathing retort to a New York Times editorial by Putin earlier this month.

Iran forswears nuclear arms, says president

New leader's conciliatory comments intrigue a wary West and its allies

Massive mudslide buries village

Mexican death toll from storms rises to 80, with dozens missing

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Restart Six-Party Talks, says Wang

Easing of tensions on peninsula presents 'a good opportunity'

Brazilian president postpones US state visit over spying

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff postponed a long-planned state visit to the United States on Tuesday, the most serious diplomatic fallout yet from Edward Snowden's leak of Washington's spying secrets.

Please leave your guns at home, Starbucks asks US customers

Coffee chain Starbucks Corp has asked customers in the United States to leave their guns at home, after being dragged into an increasingly fractious debate over gun rights in the wake of multiple mass shootings.

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Solution to growth of new-energy firms blowing in the wind

Seven years after China's Renewable Energy Law took effect in January 2006, renewable energy companies are making huge contributions to the reduction of air pollution.

Changeover conundrum

Opened in 1999, Huaneng Beijing Thermal Power Plant has four coal-fired generation units, which have a combined capacity of 845 megawatts. It provides 10 percent of the electricity consumed in Beijing annually and about 33 percent of the heat supplied to the city's central heating pipe network.