As 2019 gave way to 2020 in a cloud of tear gas, and in some cases a hail of bullets, from Hong Kong to Baghdad, from Beirut to Barcelona and Santiago, it seemed civil disobedience and government crackdowns on protests would dominate the international landscape.

Then came the coronavirus.

Italy closed all schools and universities and barred fans from all sporting events for the next few weeks, as governments trying to curb the spread of the coronavirus around the world resorted to increasingly sweeping measures that transformed the way people work, shop, pray and amuse themselves.

With the virus present in more than 80 countries, Saudi Arabia barred citizens from making the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, Iran canceled Friday prayers for a second week, and leader after leader pleaded with citizens to put an end to that traditional symbol of mutual trust, the handshake.

Turkish news channels have been dominated this week by a steady stream of black-and-white drone footage showing the destruction of Syrian regime targets in rebel-held Idlib.

International experts are questioning the scale of the new coronavirus epidemic in Iran, where the official death toll is second only to China and risks creating a regional epicenter of contagion.

As the United States and the Taliban ready to sign a deal aimed at eventually getting America out of Afghanistan, here are some landmark events in the two-decade conflict:

As the men wearing long black coats approached, Shmuel, a lapsed member of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, lowered his head to avoid being recognised. 

Abu Jabber has a plan to escape the Syrian regime's advance: he has built a ladder from rusty metal for him and his 11 children to climb over the Turkish border wall.

Algeria's year-old anti-government movement is among several to have rocked the Middle East and North Africa in the past year, in an echo of the region's 2011 revolts.

When Iraq's top Shiite cleric underwent surgery for a fractured bone last month, it sent shivers around the country and beyond. "May God heal Iraq," read a photo of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani that circulated online.

Frantic supporters shared prayers. Anti-government protesters hung photos of the black-turbaned cleric with a long white beard and bushy eyebrows, declaring, "The hearts of the revolutionaries are with you." Al-Sistani's well-wishers included officials from both Iran and the United States, the bitter rivals for influence in Iraq.

On a crisp winter's day the snow glistens on the mountains above Tehran, but the mood is as heavy as the pall of pollution that often shrouds Iran's capital.