Global diplomatic fallout from the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia's Istanbul consulate may help Qatar in its political stand-off with the kingdom, experts said.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose image has been tarnished by the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, gained popularity after shaking up the ultraconservative kingdom with reforms. But many now see his crackdown on dissent as verging on authoritarianism. 

Saudi Arabia has long been a major US ally in the Middle East, thanks primarily to security considerations and oil.

A European Union summit this week broke up with little progress towards a Brexit deal, just months before Britain is due to leave the bloc on March 29, 2019.

Next week's EU summit has been billed as a last chance to negotiate an orderly Brexit, but is the cliff edge really that close? When is the true deadline?

Malaysia will join the nearly three quarters of countries in the world which have abolished or ceased to use the death penalty, according to Amnesty International.

Capital punishment currently remains in place in 23 countries, with China still believed to be the "world's top executioner", according to the rights group's 2017 report.

The main sticking point in Brexit negotiations is how to keep the land border between Britain and Ireland open after Britain leaves the European Union.

Right-winger Jair Bolsonaro and leftist candidate Fernando Haddad, who will contest a second-round runoff to become Brazil's next president, hold diametrically opposed visions of Brazil's future.

Over the past centuries, the Yazidi community, one of Iraq's oldest religious minorities, has repeatedly been subjected to brutal attacks leaving thousands of its members dead. One of their worst subjugations occurred four years ago with the rise of the extremist Islamic State group.

IS committed genocide and other crimes against the Yazidi minority in Iraq as their power in the country peaked in the summer of 2014.

Bosnians vote Sunday in an election as complex as the country itself, a nation fractured along ethnic lines and paralysed by competing power centres.

The 1995 Dayton Peace Accords put an end to the devastating war that claimed 100,000 lives and displaced millions.