With the exit of U.S.-led foreign forces in Afghanistan near completion, the Taliban has ramped up its offensive, capturing half the country's districts and border crossings and encircling several provincial capitals.

A recap since the sweeping offensive began in May: 

In the year since a monster explosion disfigured Beirut, a local probe has yet to yield significant arrests or even identify a culprit, with politicians widely accused of stalling progress.

The August 4, 2020 explosion at the Beirut port killed more than 200 people and destroyed swathes of the capital.

As Lebanon marks a year since the devastating Beirut port blast, here is a timeline of its 12 months of crisis:

- Devastation -

Lebanon on Wednesday marks a year since a fire at Beirut's port led to the country's worst peacetime disaster and precipitated its decline.

On August 4, 2020, a fire at the Beirut port ignited one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history. It disfigured the city, took more than 200 lives and shattered Lebanon's psyche.

Days of political turmoil in Tunisia over a crippled economy and surging coronavirus infections have left the country's allies in the Middle East, Europe and the United States watching to see if its fragile democracy will survive.

European countries — most notably nearby Italy — worry about a flood of migrants should Tunisia slide further into chaos.

Op-ed by British Ambassador to Lebanon Ian Collard

“The main hope of a nation”, said the Dutch scholar Erasmus, “lies in the proper education of its youth”. For Lebanon, this has never felt more true. The country’s best times have been founded on a strong investment in its education sector – creating Lebanese thinkers, entrepreneurs, and professionals who were able not just to shape their nation positively but whose ambitions spread into the region and indeed beyond. Sadly, one of the greatest risks to Lebanon now, as it deals with one of the most challenging periods in its history, is what is happening to the education of its children.

A year after the cataclysmic Beirut port blast, Shady Rizk's doctors are still plucking glass from his body. The latest extraction was a centimeter-long sliver above his knee pit.

Tunisia, the cradle of the 2011 Arab Spring revolts and long seen as its sole democratic success story, has been plunged into crisis with the threat of more turmoil ahead.  

Najib Miqati, a billionaire businessman and Lebanon's latest premier-designate, is a political veteran viewed by some as emblematic of the crony politics that steered the country towards collapse.