Angela Merkel, Germany's first female chancellor, has been praised by many for her pragmatic leadership in a turbulent world and celebrated by some as a feminist icon. But a look at her track record over her 16 years at Germany's helm reveals missed opportunities for fighting gender inequality at home.

Named "The World's Most Powerful Woman" by Forbes magazine for the last 10 years in a row, Merkel has been cast as a powerful defender of liberal values in the West. She has easily stood her ground at male-dominated summits with leaders such as former U.S. President Donald Trump or Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Algerians looked back on two decades of "missed opportunities" as flags flew at half mast Sunday ahead of the funeral of former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

His death at age 84 was announced late Friday, more than two years after the former strongman quit office.

The humble spoon has taken its place alongside traditional flags and banners as a Palestinian resistance symbol, after prisoners were said to have carried out one of Israel's most spectacular jail breaks with the utensil.

When the six Palestinian militants escaped through a tunnel on September 6 from the high security Gilboa prison, social networks shared images of a tunnel at the foot of a sink, and a hole dug outside.

Lebanon's new government, finally formed in the throes of an accelerating economic meltdown after 13 months of political deadlock, has its work cut out.

Lebanon's new prime minister Najib Miqati has pledged to gain control of one of the world's worst economic meltdowns, saying lifting subsidies was a critical priority for the small country's government formed after a year of political stalemate.

It is a momentous task facing the 24-minister Cabinet, which includes fresh faces who are prominent experts in their fields, but which still reflects Lebanon's fractious politics.

Mired in what the World Bank calls one of the worst economic crises since the mid-19th century, Lebanon finally got a new government Friday after 13 months of deadlock.

President Joe Biden turned the page on one legacy of 9/11 by ending the war in Afghanistan. But he has yet to do much about another: the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

The White House says it intends to shutter the prison on the U.S. base in Cuba, which opened in January 2002 and where most of the 39 men still held have never been charged with a crime. How or when the administration will carry out that plan remains unclear, though early moves to free one prisoner and place five others on a list of those eligible for release have generated optimism among some eager to see it close, including prisoners.

Twenty years since the Taliban's hardline regime was ousted from Kabul, the Islamists are back in power and putting a new political agenda into practice.

Workshops in Syria's Aleppo used to clatter on into the night before the war, but these days the machines grind to a halt at 6:00 pm sharp because of power cuts.

Fighting ended almost five years ago in the country's former economic hub, but limited electricity supply has hampered a full return to work in its manufacturing neighborhoods that produce everything from plastic to food.

As night falls on the Gaza Strip, Palestinian protesters approach the border fence with Israel, carrying homemade stun grenades and Molotov cocktails to hurl toward the enemy soldiers.

The aim of these so-called disruption operations, sponsored by the Islamist armed group Hamas that rules Gaza, is to harass the Israeli border forces -- but analysts warn it is a dangerous game.