German Chancellor Angela Merkel has vowed to stay the course with her welcome to refugees but faces stormy waters, with some conservatives rebelling and key state elections on the horizon.

With about 3,000 new asylum-seekers still braving the winter cold to cross the border from Austria every day, Germany is headed for a repeat of last year when it took in a record 1.1 million migrants, straining resources and fraying nerves.

Saudi Arabia on Saturday marks one year since King Salman bin Abdulaziz acceded to the throne of the world's biggest oil exporter, beginning a tumultuous period of change.

Here are facts about Salman, his powerful son Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef:

When Saudi Arabia's king Abdullah died a year ago on Saturday, his subjects expected their country to keep a steady course under new King Salman.

They were in for a royal shock.

Syrian peace talks due next week are looking increasingly moot as a string of recent battlefield victories by government troops have bolstered President Bashar Assad's hand and plunged the rebels into disarray.

The government's advances add to the obstacles that have scuttled chances of halting — at least anytime soon — the five-year civil war that has killed a quarter of a million people, displaced half the country and enabled the radical Islamic State group to seize a third of Syria's territory.

Was this weekend's nuclear deal and Washington's surprise prisoner swap with Tehran the final high point of a one-off diplomatic initiative or the start of a real realignment?

Some 35 years after U.S.-Iran ties were broken amid the chaos of the Tehran hostage crisis, might the Great Satan and the Axis of Evil lynchpin be on the brink of real detente?

The implementation of the Iran nuclear deal marked a major step forward in Washington's cautious rapprochement with Iran, but will further strain ties with Saudi Arabia.

While President Barack Obama's government insists its goal was simply to halt the spread of atomic weapons, experts detect an effort to bring a new balance to its Middle East relationships.

The Islamic State group may be losing ground in its strongholds of Iraq and Syria but as the attack in Indonesia this month showed, the jihadists are rallying other groups under their banner, analysts say.

In most cases, these groups have no direct contact with the leadership of IS's self-proclaimed caliphate, but the group is happy to claim responsibility for the blood spilled in its name, the experts say.

An al-Qaida affiliate run by one of the world's most-wanted men, Algeria's Mokhtar Belmokhtar, was behind Friday's attack on a hotel and restaurant popular with Westerners in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou, a regional franchise of the extremist network said.

The attack, in which at least 23 people were killed, is the latest in a string of assaults by the notorious Belmokhtar's Al-Murabitoun group across north and west Africa in recent years.

"He's gone," the doctor said quietly, announcing the death of 16-year-old Ali of starvation in the basement of a makeshift clinic in the besieged Syrian town of Madaya. 

Ali's death late Thursday was witnessed by representatives of the U.N. children's agency, UNICEF, as they assessed the health situation of residents of the famine-stricken town. 

When a wave of deadly ethnic violence swept through the northern Iraqi town of Tuz Khurmatu, Ahmed Hassan Majid's house was on the wrong side of an invisible line.

The Kurdish-Turkmen violence ignited by a checkpoint dispute in November has since faded, but divisions between the communities are sharper than ever.