A French warship ploughs through the sparkling waters between Africa and Arabia on a joint training drill with the U.S. that highlights Djibouti's growing strategic role for the world's militaries.

On the sun-blasted rocky shores of the tiny Horn of Africa nation, some 500 French troops march alongside 50 U.S. Marines near the town of Arta, wearing full kit in the baking heat.

In the garage of his home in a rough-and-tumble Havana neighborhood, Rolando Alfonso is fixing up a 1960 Oldsmobile he hopes will be a ticket to a more profitable future: Driving tourists around Cuba.

After President Barack Obama's visit to the city last week, he's more optimistic than ever that his vision might become reality.

Legal experts and historians have reacted with outrage to the controversial war crimes acquittal of firebrand Serb Vojislav Seselj, saying it overturns international law and rewrites the history of the Balkans conflict.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bid to turn Israel into a natural gas exporter has hit a major snag over a court ruling, but he still has room for maneuver, analysts say.

The supreme court on Sunday struck down a complex agreement intended to lead to the development of a large gas field in the Mediterranean.

The worst fears of Pakistan's Christians came true with the carnage in Lahore on Easter Sunday, said activists who had braced for a backlash since thousands took to the streets over the execution of a murderer feted as an Islamist hero.

Historian of the ancient world Maurice Sartre explains what Syria's capture of Palmyra from the Islamic State group will mean for the UNESCO World Heritage site.

Q: What is your initial response to the news that the Syrian army has recaptured Palmyra?

Sitting outdoors at a quiet Tripoli cafe, Libyans wonder how a third government could possibly take up residence in a capital controlled by armed groups who reject it. 

Syria's ancient city of Palmyra, which government forces recaptured from the Islamic State jihadist group on Sunday, is an archaeological treasure designated as a UNESCO world heritage site in 1980.

It was seized by IS in May last year and the jihadists sent shock waves around the world during the autumn with a systematic campaign of destruction of the city's monuments.

The "crossing season" for migrant boats from Libya to Italy has not yet begun, yet arrivals are already up on last year's count, raising questions about where the new wave of tens of thousands will be housed.

Amid unseasonably fine weather and calm seas, warnings have been sounded in recent days over the number of migrants in Libya ready to attempt the perilous Mediterranean crossing -- 500,000 according to EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, while French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian puts it closer to 800,000.

Tough talk and flag-waving patriotism have been rare in Belgium in the wake of this week's terror attacks, the worst to strike the divided nation at the symbolic heart of the EU.

While France and the United States rallied their citizens after major attacks evoking national identity and pledging revenge, Belgian leaders have urged tolerance and understanding.