From the shock Brexit referendum result to Monday's unveiling of the British government's reworked Brexit strategy, here are milestones on the UK's rocky road out of the European Union after 46 years.

- Britain votes to leave -In a referendum on June 23, 2016, Britons choose to end their membership of the 28-nation EU by 52 percent to 48 percent.

Since the start of the Syrian conflict, Turkey has pushed for the creation of a buffer zone on its border to protect refugees and prevent the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish region.

Iraq could bear the brunt if conflict intensifies between Iran and the United States, a think-tank study said Wednesday.

Macedonia's parliament Wednesday starts examining constitutional changes required to adopt the new name "Republic of North Macedonia" to end a row that has long poisoned relations with neighbouring Greece.

The reopening of the United Arab Emirates embassy in Damascus is the most visible step so far of efforts to return Syria to the diplomatic arena.

On January 1, Cuba will mark the 60th anniversary of the communist revolution that brought the late and enigmatic leader Fidel Castro to power. Here, AFP talks to four Cubans about what the revolution still means to them.

The Kurds, a non-Arab ethnic group, number between 25 and 35 million people who are spread across four countries but without a state of their own.

A series of dramatic events swept across the Arab and Muslim worlds in 1979, the aftershocks of which still reverberate today, 40 years later.

The conflict over Europe that has been tearing the Conservatives apart for three decades is as evident on the streets of English towns as it is in the corridors of power.

Even as the last pockets of resistance in eastern Syria hold their ground, the Islamic State group is shapeshifting into a new, but no less dangerous, underground form, experts warn.