International opinions about which nations serve as a positive influence on global affairs are changing. Around the world, more people are looking to Asia, with Japan topping the list, while increasing numbers are disappointed with Europe. However, Asians themselves remained wary of their neighbors.
With the Premier League season coming to a close, a look at some of the players who could be arriving at Chelsea this summer.
The main event this week is April?s retail sales report, which could see some payback after the unseasonably warm weather boosted March?s results. In Europe, investors will get a look at how the region?s economies fared in the first quarter.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives suffered a crushing defeat Sunday in Germany's most populous state, which could embolden the left opposition to step up its criticism of her European austerity policies.
Fashion's Night Out is once gain stepping out on the international stage. The Vogue-hosted shopping event is set to expand to all 19 territories that publish Vogue magazine for 2012.
Get all the latest news on the players being linked with a summer move to Chelsea. And one star who may be on his way out.
Spain stepped up efforts to save its troubled banks on Thursday with a plan to make them recognize huge losses from a property crash, but uncertainty over the final cost of a rescue hit the euro, Spanish debt and global stock markets.
An image of missing British girl Madeleine McCann was used to sell online vouchers for discounted vacations in Portugal, the country where she went missing more than five years ago.
Garrett McNamara broke records and took home awards at Fridays Billabong XXL Awards. Taking home the Biggest Wave Award for his wave at North Canyon in Portugal, Garrett also set a new world record for surfing.
French voters turned out in force Sunday in the second round of presidential elections that are likely to make Nicolas Sarkozy the 11th European leader to be swept from office by the economic crisis.
Winning the title in four major European nations might never be repeated and the fact Real Madrid boss Jose Mourinho has overcome the great Barcelona to achieve the feat makes his success even more remarkable.
Real Madrid won its first La Liga title since 2007-08 with a 3-0 win over Athletic Bilbao.
Portuguese officials have refused to reopen the case of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, citing insufficient reasoning to do so, despite new interest in the case.
Britain's economy contracted in the first quarter, its second such consecutive decline, sending Europe's third-largest economy into a double-dip recession and giving ammunition to critics of Prime Minister David Cameron's austerity measures.
British police are still hoping to find Madeline McCann alive after reviewing 40, 000 pieces of evidence that turned up 195 new investigative leads in the missing girl's case.
The doubling of the International Monetary Fund's firepower, an increase in Europe's bailout fund and liquidity injections should be enough to contain Europe's sovereign debt crisis, the head of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said on Wednesday.
Spain's budget deficit was confirmed at 8.5 percent of economic output in 2011 by the EU's statistics office Eurostat on Monday, dispelling doubts about the new Spanish government's reading of its national accounts.
The Group of 20 nations on Friday pledged more than $430 billion to better than double the International Monetary Fund's lending capacity and protect the global economy from the euro zone's debt crisis.
The Group of 20 nations on Friday were poised to commit at least $400 billion to bulk up the International Monetary Fund's war chest to fight any widening of Europe's debt crisis.
Major emerging powers stood ready on Friday to pledge money to bolster the International Monetary Fund's crisis-fighting war chest, though Brazil was holding out for promises that their voting power at the global lender would increase.
Major emerging powers stood ready on Friday to pledge money to bolster the International Monetary Fund's crisis-fighting war chest, though Brazil was holding out for promises that their voting power at the global lender would increase.
Major emerging powers stood ready on Friday to pledge money to bolster the International Monetary Fund's crisis-fighting war chest, though Brazil was holding out for promises that their voting power at the global lender would increase.
