Ehud Olmert was once described as "probably the best" politician Israel ever produced, but the debonair ex-premier who was released from prison on Sunday has seen a humiliating fall from grace.

As the U.S.-led coalition tightens the noose around the Islamic State group in Syria, President Bashar Assad's Iranian-backed troops are also seizing back territory from the militants with little protest from Washington, a sign of how American options are limited without a powerful ally on the ground.

Washington is loath to cooperate with Assad's internationally ostracized government. But it will be difficult to uproot IS militants and keep them out with only the Kurdish and Arab militias backed by the U.S. — and a coalition spokesman pointed out that Assad's gains ease the burden on those forces.

Once expunged from its official history, documents outlining the U.S.-backed 1953 coup in Iran have been quietly published by the State Department, offering a new glimpse at an operation that ultimately pushed the country toward its Islamic Revolution and hostility with the West.

The CIA's role in the coup, which toppled Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh and cemented the control of the shah, was already well-known by the time the State Department offered its first compendium on the era in 1989. But any trace of American involvement in the putsch had been wiped from the report, causing historians to call it a fraud.

Michel Temer is the first Brazilian president to face criminal charges while still in office. Yet here are four reasons why -- for now -- he may save his job.

There was a time when the mention of the Persian Gulf brought to mind images of pampered societies ruled by aging monarchs content to preside quietly over their oil money and fantastical skyscrapers while the U.S. kept the peace.

Not anymore.

The Al-Saud dynasty gave its family name to the Gulf Arab monarchy of Saudi Arabia ruled by the sons of founder Abdul Aziz bin Saud.

Saudi Arabia's hard-charging Mohammed bin Salman, named crown prince on Wednesday, holds unusual power for a man of just 31, so much so that diplomats nickname him "Mr Everything".

The son of King Salman has risen to become Saudi Arabia's most influential and prominent figure since being named second-in-line to the throne in early 2015.

The unprecedented U.S. downing of a Syrian regime warplane highlights the rapidly shifting dynamic in the six-year conflict where President Donald Trump has given American commanders a freer rein in the battlefield.

The Islamic State group is in retreat across Syria and Iraq, and the contours of a new conflict among the array of parties battling it are already starting to appear.

The U.S. military shot down a Syrian government warplane on Sunday, saying it had targeted an American-allied Kurdish force that is battling the extremists in their de facto capital, Raqqa. That led Russia, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, to warn that it would target U.S.-led coalition planes flying west of the Euphrates River.

A diplomatic crisis pitting Saudi Arabia against Qatar has put Syrian rebels in a difficult position, analysts say, after rivalries between Gulf backers had already weakened the opposition.