Refugee crisis could shake up German political landscape in 2016
Merkel enters new year under pressure to cut refugee flow as anti-immigrant AfD shoots to new highs
Putin names United States among threats in new Russian security strategy
Relations between Russia and the West reached a low after Russian forces annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine
Snowstorm in Lebanon strands motorists, hits refugees
More than half of Lebanon's 1 million Syrian refugees live in tented settlements, garages or abandoned buildings
Terrified families emerge from rubble after battle of Ramadi
Ramadi, a provincial capital, west of Baghdad is the biggest city to have been recaptured from Islamic State
Dangerous Mediterranean crossing killed record number of migrants in 2015 - agency
Deadliest month was April, when nearly 1,250 migrants died, some 800 of whom were on a ship that capsized off the Libyan coast
Weather, war threaten to leave millions more hungry in 2016 - aid agencies
Ethiopia, Haiti, Papua New Guinea and Yemen give fresh cause for concern
Before Mosul, Iraqi army may face fight at the gates of Baghdad
Falluja lies between Baghdad and Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, that Iraqi forces recaptured this week from IS
Germany to increase scrutiny of Syrian asylum applicants
Chancellor Angela Merkel has repeatedly rebuffed pressure to clamp down on migrant arrivals along German borders
At issue in U.N. Syria ceasefire plan: Who is a terrorist?
A U.N. plan to suspend Syria's civil war calls for listing which militant groups may be fought despite an eventual ceasefire