Thousands of Brazilians who support former president Jair Bolsonaro invaded the Supreme Court, presidential palace and Congress on Jan. 8 in an episode that closely resembled the U.S. Capitol insurrection in 2021. The groups were able to break through police barricades along the capital Brasilia's main boulevard and storm the buildings, damage furniture, smash windows and destroy artworks. As they unleashed chaos in the capital, Bolsonaro was holed up in Florida, home to his ally, former U.S. President Donald Trump. The incident sparked accusations that Bolsonaro's actions stoked the flames of dissent and ultimately produced the uprising.

WHO ARE THESE PROTESTERS, AND WHAT DO THEY WANT?

Enraged protesters broke into government buildings that are the very symbol of their country's democracy. Driven by conspiracy theories about their candidate's loss in the last election, they smashed windows, sifted through the desks of lawmakers and trashed the highest offices in the land in a rampage that lasted hours before order could be restored.

Sunday's attack by supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil's capital drew immediate parallels with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by former President Donald Trump's backers two years and two days earlier.

The French government will announce proposals for raising the retirement age and overhauling the pension system on Tuesday, in a potentially explosive reform fraught with danger for President Emmanuel Macron.

Insisting that the French "need to work more", Macron has pushed for the pension system to be streamlined since his rise to power in 2017.

Iran's Islamic clerical regime is divided in its response to months of unprecedented protests, wavering between repression and what it views as conciliatory gestures trying to quell the discontent, analysts say.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new government is little more than a week old but it's already giving the Biden administration headaches.

Just days into its mandate, a controversial member of Netanyahu's right-wing Cabinet riled U.S. diplomats with a visit to a Jerusalem holy site that some believe may be harbinger of other contentious moves, including vast expansions of Jewish settlement construction on land claimed by the Palestinians.

The world's eight billion people Saturday ushered in 2023, bidding farewell to a turbulent 12 months marked by war in Europe, stinging price rises, Lionel Messi's World Cup glory and the deaths of Queen Elizabeth, Pele and former pope Benedict.

Syria's Kurds could soon face a tripartite ultimatum to cede territory, analysts predict, as Syrian, Turkish and Russian defense ministers met this week in Moscow -- the first such talks since Syria's war began in 2011.

After five elections that have paralyzed Israeli politics for nearly four years, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has finally returned to power with the government he has long coveted: a parliamentary majority of religious and far-right lawmakers who share his hard-line views toward the Palestinians and hostility toward Israel's legal system.

Yet Netanyahu's joy may be short-lived. Putting together his coalition proved to be surprisingly complicated, requiring nearly two months of painstaking negotiations and a series of legal maneuvers just to allow his partners to take office. Among them: newly created Cabinet positions with widespread authority over security and a law allowing a politician on parole for a criminal conviction to be a government minister.

Lebanon for more than three years has been mired in a deep financial, economic and social crisis, aggravated by a political deadlock.

Here is a recap since turmoil broke out in October 2019.

Even before an epic final won by Lionel Messi and Argentina, FIFA president Gianni Infantino was calling it "the best World Cup ever" in Qatar.