The trial of 12 Catalan separatist leaders involved in a bid to secede from Spain starts on Tuesday.

From the return to Tehran of exiled revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to the fall of the shah's last government, Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution was over in 10 days.

More than a decade ago, university students in Venezuela burst onto the political scene by rekindling opposition to then leader Hugo Chavez with street protests that led to the socialist firebrand's only election defeat. 

President Donald Trump is the latest chief executive to deliver a State of the Union address at a time of turmoil.

But others may have had it even worse. Abraham Lincoln delivered a written report during the Civil War, Richard Nixon spoke while embroiled in the Watergate scandal and Bill Clinton gave one of his State of the Union speeches just weeks after he'd been impeached in the very same room.

Pope Francis's three-day trip to the United Arab Emirates Sunday marks the first time a pontiff has ever visited the conservative Muslim Arabian Peninsula, where over 2.6 million Catholics reside.

While the overwhelming majority of Catholics in the region are expatriates, according to the Apostolic Vicariates of southern and northern Arabia, the pope's journey to the birthplace of Islam is another milestone in his efforts to boost interreligious ties.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was an austere and charismatic cleric who became an icon of the 21st century for standing against the West and bringing down Iran's monarchy, but also for his revolutionary ideas about Islam’s role in politics.

With diplomatic ties between France and Italy increasingly tense, some observers have reached for marital metaphors to describe the breakdown in relations between two countries at the heart of the European Union.

Islamic State (IS) jihadists in June 2014 proclaimed a "caliphate" across the swathes of territory they had seized in Syria and Iraq, but have since lost one territory after another.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accuses the United States of trying to orchestrate a coup against him. While the U.S. says it's trying to rescue Venezuela's democracy, Washington has a long history of interventions — military and otherwise — in Latin American politics.

Venezuelan oil output has plunged by more than half in 30 years but the country still sits on the world's biggest crude reserves, so any political changes will ripple worldwide.