On Nov. 13, 1970, a young air force officer from the coastal hills of Syria launched a bloodless coup. It was the latest in a succession of military takeovers since independence from France in 1946, and there was no reason to think it would be the last.

Yet 50 years later, Hafez Assad's family still rules Syria.

Home to Europe's largest Muslim population, France is often accused of being "against" Islam because of its ban on the burqa and religious symbols such as headscarves in schools.

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to make Saudi Arabia a "pariah" over its human rights failings, but observers say the oil-rich Arab powerhouse still holds enough leverage to deflect a major rupture in relations.

With Joe Biden, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will probably be unable to influence US policy with a simple phone call, as he had occasionally done with Donald Trump.

Iraq's pro-Tehran factions have welcomed Joe Biden's election as US president, alarming officials and activists in Baghdad who fear a US-Iran deescalation could empower hardliners in their own country.

Baghdad has long been caught in a tug-of-war for influence between its two main allies Washington and Tehran, made even more tense by outgoing US President Donald Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran since 2018.

Democrats and Republicans were gearing up Wednesday for a possible legal showdown to decide the winner of the tight presidential race between Republican Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

Trump declared overnight he was ready to go to the U.S. Supreme Court to dispute the counting of votes, as the results remained unclear in several key states, notably Pennsylvania.

Veteran British journalist Robert Fisk, one of the best-known Middle East correspondents who spent his career reporting from the troubled region and won accolades for challenging mainstream narratives has died after a short illness, his employer said Monday. He was 74.

Fisk, whose reporting often sparked controversy, died Sunday at a hospital in Dublin, shortly after he was taken there after falling ill at his home in the Irish capital. The London Independent, where he had worked since 1989, described him as the most celebrated journalist of his era.

He has suffered profound personal tragedy and seen his earlier political ambitions thwarted, but veteran Democrat Joe Biden hopes his pledge to unify Americans will deliver him the presidency after nearly half a century in Washington.

Rarely has the profile of opposing presidential nominees differed so sharply as in the 2020 race, which pits the empathetic Biden, with decades of leadership and a blue-collar upbringing, against brawling President Donald Trump, the billionaire businessman who insists he remains the outsider.

All his life, the only constant about Donald Trump has been that everything must be about Donald Trump.

In the build-up to Tuesday's U.S. presidential election, AFP correspondents have travelled to dozens of towns and cities far beyond Washington to hear from voters about how they view hot-button issues.