With the death of Fidel Castro, the United States has lost its last great Cold War enemy, a leader who long ago passed the baton to his brother and sat on the sidelines during his country's historic rapprochement with its old foe.

The loss of the firebrand who flouted America's superpower status under 11 US presidents comes as Washington is poised to undergo a major transition from the administration of Barack Obama to that of the brash Republican billionaire Donald Trump.

One year after the crisis that plunged relations between Russia and Turkey to a post-Cold War low, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan have overseen a spectacular revival in ties at a time when both are facing new tensions with the West.

The shooting down of a Russian military jet over the Syrian border by the Turkish air force on November 24 2015 was the culmination of months of tensions over the civil war, prompting Moscow to impose retaliatory sanctions on Ankara. 

The Syrian army's advances against rebels in east Aleppo have sparked international concern, but the world appears powerless to prevent the symbolic city from being recaptured by the government.

Iraqi civilians who escaped from the Islamic State group stronghold of Mosul said jihadists forced them from their villages and drove them "like sheep" to use as human shields.

Bus driver Adem Alomerovic was returning home to southern Serbia after undergoing medical tests in Belgrade when he was hauled off a train by members of a notorious militia as it crossed through Bosnian territory.

Iraqi forces have broken into jihadist-held Mosul and recaptured neighborhoods inside the city, but a month into their offensive, there are still weeks or more of potentially heavy fighting ahead.

Turkey is heading to a referendum on granting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan new powers as early as next spring, ratcheting up tensions amid a crackdown on dissent and pro-Kurdish politicians, analysts say. 

The courts have arrested over 35,000 people under a state of emergency imposed in the wake of the failed July 15 coup aimed at unseating Erdogan whose defeat the authorities see as a triumph of Turkish democracy. 

Donald Trump's election has thrown key U.S. alliances into doubt, but could it yet destroy the liberal world order and the West as we know it?

If you thought President Barack Obama's White House sit-down with Donald Trump was awkward, wait for Obama's menu of meetings with foreign leaders next week. 

The myth that only uneducated white men would vote for Donald Trump exploded in a sensational win for the maverick billionaire, a former reality star with no political experience whatsoever.

His resounding victory -- even if Hillary Clinton won the popular vote -- spotlights a wealthier and more diverse coalition of supporters than many Americans thought possible, including educated voters, women and minority voters.

Outside the Carillon bar, where flowers piled up over bloodstains almost one year ago, the pavement tables are packed again with regulars from the hipster Parisian neighbourhood.