Would Israelis and Palestinians now be living in peace with one another if a Jewish extremist had not assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin 20 years ago?

That question, and thoughts on the nature of today's Jewish state, are on the minds of many Israelis as the anniversary of the November 4, 1995 assassination highlights the gulf between visionary hope and stark reality.

Aviation experts point to a range of scenarios to explain the crash Saturday of a Russian jetliner in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, killing all 224 people on board.

International investigators have begun sifting through the wreckage and the Egyptian government says the plane's two "black box" flight recorders have been recovered.

Barack Obama's decision to send special forces to Syria is too little and too late, say critics, who accuse the U.S. president of lacking a strategy for the war-torn country.  

After four and a half years of conflict that have left 250,000 dead and millions displaced, Washington says it will deploy elite U.S. commandos to Syria.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Central Asia on Saturday for a five-day, five-nation tour of the "Stans," to reassure them they will not be forgotten.

Concern is mounting in the region that, as the U.S. operation in Afghanistan finally draws towards a close, Washington will lose interest in its landlocked northern neighbors.

Ibrahim fled his home in Gwoza, northeast Nigeria, in August last year, when invading Boko Haram fighters took over the town as part of the Islamist group's self-declared caliphate.

The businessman lost his home, cars, money and his brother, who was shot dead as they fled the carnage, spending 14 days on the road and barely eating.

Iran's first presence in international talks on Syria underscore a special relationship between the two countries' governments, based in part on a joint adherence to the Shiite branch of Islam.

Syrian President Bashar Assad and top officials of his regime are members of the country's Alawite minority, a Shiite offshoot.

Russia launched a campaign of air strikes in Syria in support of President Bashar Assad on September 30, providing air cover for government offensives in several provinces.

One month into the campaign, here are answers to some key questions:

Major international backers of Syria's warring rivals are holding intense talks in Vienna in a renewed push to seek a political solution to the four-year conflict, which has killed more than 250,000 people and forced millions to flee.

The talks will for the first time gather all the major foreign players in the war -- the United States, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey -- in the same room.

A power struggle is emerging between Saudi Arabia's two most powerful princes, analysts and diplomats say, as the secretive kingdom confronts some of its biggest challenges in years.

The Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen, falling oil prices and rising jihadist violence are putting the country's leadership to the test, nine months after King Salman assumed the throne following the death of king Abdullah.

France, which has taken a tough line on Syrian President Bashar Assad, is struggling to make itself heard as the diplomatic ground shifts towards a compromise with the regime.

Trying to keep France at the heart of negotiations on Syria, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius scrambled to gather key powers in Paris on Tuesday.