This week's surprise Moscow summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian leader Bashar Assad was perhaps one of the most sensitive meetings the Kremlin walls have seen in recent times.

At stake was the future of the Syrian conflict -- and also Russia's place on the world stage as Putin seeks to muscle his way back to global influence after months of Western isolation over Ukraine.

A palpable sense of security is returning to Pakistan as a crackdown on militancy bears fruit, but critics warn the government has not taken long-term steps to tackle the underlying scourge of extremist Islam.

Peace in Pakistan and Afghanistan will be top of the agenda in Washington on Thursday when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif meets U.S. President Barack Obama. 

Al-Qaida's black flag is flying over several official buildings in Yemen's second city Aden as jihadists make inroads in the absence of state authority and with the country mired in conflict.

In Tawahi, the flag has been hoisted over the police station and is flown on cars ferrying bearded men across one of the largest districts of the port city, residents say.

Images of an Eritrean asylum seeker lying in a pool of blood as an angry mob kicks him has renewed debate in Israel over alleged racism and how to respond to violence.

Habtom Zarhum, 29, was shot by a security guard this week at a bus station in the southern city of Beersheba after being mistaken for an assailant in an attack that killed an Israeli soldier.  

Their campaigns flatlined long ago. But several low-polling candidates in the U.S. presidential race insist they are still viable contenders, even as voters and experts ask: Why?

Jim Webb, for instance, has made zero impact on the race. He exited the Democratic nomination battle on Tuesday much like he entered it -- with few people noticing.

Four years after Moammar Gadhafi was killed in an uprising, the dictator's legacy continues to haunt oil-rich Libya as it struggles to find its national identity.

"Gadhafi chose to build the idea of a state around his personality," said Michael Nayebi-Oskoui, senior Middle East analyst at the U.S.-based global intelligence firm Stratfor.

Devastated by years of fighting, Syria's battle-weary armed forces are struggling to make significant gains despite intense Russian air support for a series of new offensives.

Nearly three weeks of air strikes have given Bashar Assad's regime and his forces a morale boost, analysts say, but so far the effect on the ground has been negligible.

The United States' decision to extend its military presence in Afghanistan beyond 2016 has thrown the war-ravaged country's government a much needed lifeline even as its dysfunctionality, blamed for the Taliban's revival, shows no signs of abating.

It has been just over a year since Ashraf Ghani was sworn in as president as part of a U.S.-brokered unity government with his main election rival, former anti-Soviet fighter Abdullah Abdullah, as chief executive.

They gather in the dark, wave German flags and vent their fury at foreigners they fear are overrunning their homeland -- next week Germany's anti-Islamic PEGIDA movement turns one year old.

Radicalized by Germany's record influx of refugees and migrants, the long-dormant protest movement has come back with a vengeance onto the streets of Dresden in the former communist East.

One party -- the banned Muslim Brotherhood -- will be conspicuously absent from ballot papers Sunday when Egypt's voters head to the polls for long-delayed parliamentary elections.

What had been Egypt's main opposition group for decades fell foul of the authorities after army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 and was elected to succeed him last year.