Peace talks between the Taliban and Afghan government negotiators offer no easy route to bridging deep ideological divides and resolving the bitter legacy of two decades of war.

With elections fast approaching, President Donald Trump has quickly racked up a string of foreign policy achievements to showcase, even as progress remains elusive on his major goals.

Key dates in relations between Iraq and the United States, which invaded in 2003, before withdrawing in 2011, only to return three years later to battle the Islamic State group.

Sudan's government and rebel forces have agreed a landmark deal aimed at ending decades of war in which hundreds of thousands of people have been killed.

A fearless campaigner for democratic openness? Or a criminal trying to avoid justice? WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a highly polarising figure.

A month after Beirut's devastating explosion, Ghassan Toubaji still sits under a gaping hole in his ceiling -- he can look up through the dangling plaster, wires and metal struts and the broken brick roof and see a bit of sky.

The 74-year-old survived the Aug. 4 blast with bruises, but his fall from its impact worsened his heart and blood circulation diseases. Between that and Lebanon's crumbled economy, he can't go back to work.

Under pressure from its citizens and Western powers, the leaders of multi-confessional Lebanon have vowed to abandon a power-sharing system that is widely seen to plague political life.

A century ago France created Greater Lebanon, the foundation for the modern-day state of Lebanon which is now mired in a deep political and economic crisis.

Mourning the Beirut blast disaster, ruined by economic meltdown and hostage to a dysfunctional political system, Lebanon marks its centenary Tuesday unsure whether it will survive as a state.

There will be no ceremony to commemorate 100 years since French mandate authorities on September 1, 1920 proclaimed the creation of Greater Lebanon incorporating mainly Muslim former Ottoman regions.

The arrival five years ago of more than a million migrants in Europe caused widespread chaos and, despite a significant decline in arrivals, tensions and divisions have continued between EU countries over migration.