Moscow's metro system is famed for its Stalin-era stations with glittering chandeliers and mosaics, but architects are taking a radical new approach as the network undergoes a massive expansion.

Leather riding boots are neatly lined up on a carpet, a picture shows blood-thirsty hounds on a fox hunt and a fountain spews water from the mouths of stone horses.

Concrete skeletons still haunt Spain, 10 years after the 2008 global economic crisis caused a housing boom to crumble, bankrupting developers and dotting the landscape with unfinished projects.

The paralysis triggered by the US government shutdown could have unexpected consequences, such as muddying economic statistics just as the markets are extremely reactive to any whiff of uncertainty.

The euro was launched on January 1, 1999, at first only for accounting and financial transactions, and then three years later as notes and coins.

The United Nations on Friday welcomed a decision by Yemen's government to pay the salaries of civil servants in the rebel-held city of Hodeida starting this month.

China’s customs administration approved U.S. rice imports on Thursday, a move that comes during a 90-day tariff truce between the two countries, which are engaged in a bruising trade war.

Trade negotiators from China and the United States are planning to meet in January for talks, Beijing said Thursday, but stopped short of confirming the exact date or location. 

London and Paris stock markets rebounded in opening deals on Thursday, after Wall Street enjoyed its best performance in nine years, but Frankfurt fell as investors played catch-up.

Russia has expanded its economic sanctions on Ukraine, adding more than 250 people and businesses to a blacklist first announced at the start of November.