Syria enters its eighth year of war on Thursday, free of the jihadist "caliphate" but torn apart by an international power struggle as the regime presses its blistering reconquest.

The conflict that started on March 15, 2011 as the government of President Bashar al-Assad cracked down on mostly peaceful protests is raging on relentlessly and getting more complex.

Vladimir Putin is widely expected to win Russia's presidential election on Sunday, giving him a fourth term that would take him to nearly a quarter-century as the head of state or government.

A retired Russian double agent was leading a seemingly peaceful life in rural Britain when he and his visiting daughter were targeted in a nerve agent attack.

Who could be behind the suspected poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter?

The issues that come before the UN Security Council are the gravest to face any decision-making body -- questions of war and peace, life and death.

A blast of Siberian weather dubbed "The Beast from the East" sent temperatures plunging across much of Europe early Tuesday as commuters braced themselves for another day of travel chaos.

Iran's supreme leader has signalled a decisive shift in favour of relations with China and Russia, indicating that patience is running out with efforts to improve ties with the West. 

One of the most popular slogans during the 1979 revolution was "Neither East nor West", a defiant vow that Iran would no longer favour either of the world's major forces at the time -- American-style capitalism or Soviet Communism.

Armenia and Turkey are at odds over whether the World War I massacres and deportations of Armenians by their Ottoman rulers should be described as genocide. 

From champagne bottles to attempting to bribe a judge -- a series of different allegations have entangled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent months.

The death of Russian citizens in Syria from a US coalition strike last week, which has been played down by both Moscow and Washington, has exposed the role of Russian mercenaries in the multi-front conflict.