MADRID - Spain will announce a series of economic reforms and a tight 2013 budget on Thursday, aiming to avoid the political humiliation of having Brussels impose conditions on a request for an international bailout.
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ATHENS/WASHINGTON - Greece's international official lenders are at loggerheads over how to solve Athens' debt crisis, threatening more trouble for the euro.
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NEW DELHI - It had been a brutal August for India's Congress party: economic growth was wilting, the monsoon rains were failing and the opposition had it cornered on yet another corruption scandal. In stepped Sonia Gandhi to revive the morale of the ruling party's lawmakers.
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NEW YORK/BEIJING - Japan will not compromise on the islands at the heart of a dispute with China as Tokyo already has sovereignty over them, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said on Wednesday after China's foreign minister angrily declared the islets were "sacred territory".
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WASHINGTON/KABUL - In the weeks before his death, 21-year-old Mabry Anders had grown increasingly worried that he might not come home from Afghanistan. The Army specialist was battling insomnia and would send brief, worried messages back to his family.
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BEIJING - A Chinese court upheld a ${esc.dollar}2.4 million tax evasion fine against China's most famous dissident Ai Weiwei on Thursday, ending his long legal battle with the authorities but paving the way for him to be jailed if he does not pay.
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UNITED NATIONS - Iran's president said on Wednesday his country was under constant threat of military action from "uncivilized Zionists" and called for a new world order not dominated by Western powers in the service of "the devil".
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BAMAKO - Photographs of Captain Amadou Sanogo - the U.S.-trained infantry officer who toppled Mali's government in a March coup - are difficult to avoid in the capital Bamako, appearing in newspapers, on stickers plastered inside taxis, and on badges worn by his supporters.
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BEDFORD HEIGHTS/BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The race for president focused squarely on the battle for working-class votes on Wednesday, as Republican Mitt Romney scrambled to make up ground on Democratic President Barack Obama in the crucial battleground state of Ohio.
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OTTAWA - Canada's ruling Conservative Party is split over a landmark ${esc.dollar}15.1 billion bid by China's CNOOC for oil producer Nexen, leaving Prime Minister Stephen Harper with a difficult final call to make.
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NEW YORK - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Myanmar President Thein Sein on Wednesday that the United States would take steps to ease the U.S. ban on imports from the country, a major boon to the Southeast Asian nation as it emerges from years of political and economic isolation.
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ADDIS ABABA - The leaders of Sudan and South Sudan reached a border security deal on Wednesday that will restart badly needed oil exports, but failed to solve the other main conflicts left over when Africa's largest country split last year.
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LONDON - This time next year, British fighter pilot Andy Green will strap himself into a rocket-powered car for test runs in a bid to accelerate to 1,000 miles per hour (1,600 kilometers per hour) and smash his own land speed record.
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The National Football League (NFL) reached an agreement to end a labour dispute with its regular game officials on Wednesday, ending three weeks of questionable calls that had threatened the integrity of the sport.
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