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Here is a snapshot of key events since the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls from the remote town of Chibok in northeastern Nigeria two years ago.

Top Chinese Communist Zhang Dejiang, currently visiting Hong Kong, studied economics in North Korea and went on to run China's richest and most populous province before ascending to the highest levels of the ruling party.

French experts confirmed Saturday that smoke had been detected in the cabin of an EgyptAir plane that crashed into the eastern Mediterranean carrying 66 people, but what brought it down remains a mystery.

One is a partially disabled gun enthusiast of the far-right, the other a distinguished elderly professor with Green backing -- Austria's presidential candidates mirror the deep rift splitting the country as it prepares for a tense runoff vote this Sunday.

Smoke detected in the cabin shortly before EgyptAir flight MS804 crashed into the Mediterranean suggests there was a fire on board, but is not enough to establish the cause of the disaster, experts said Saturday.

India's new cricket chief Anurag Thakur is a close ally of right-wing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a media-friendly administrator seen as capable of cleaning up the governing body's tarnished image.

Here are milestones in the fight against the Islamic State group as a Kurdish-Arab alliance announced an assault against the IS north of its Syrian bastion of Raqa.

German pharmaceutical giant Bayer sees in agroindustry giant Monsanto a gem worth at least $62 million for its dominant global position selling seeds sought by farmers of corn, soybeans, cotton and other commodity crops.

Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko, freed by Russia in a prisoner exchange on Wednesday, has been condemned by Moscow as a murderer but was rapturously received as a national hero back home.

Here are key points regarding Raqa, the northern city that serves as the Islamic State group's de facto capital in Syria.

Israel's newly named Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman has pledged harsh actions against Palestinians, but there are doubts over whether the hardliner will be able to translate his provocative political rhetoric into concrete action.

Events in Iraq from the breakthrough by Islamic State group (IS) fighters in 2014 to the government counter-attack.

Key dates from former Chadian dictator Hissene Habre's overthrow to his life sentence for war crimes and crimes against humanity over his brutal 1982-1990 rule, in a landmark trial in Senegal.

A Paris meeting Friday on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the latest attempt to tackle one of the world's most stubborn diplomatic issues.

Stars to watch for at Euro 2016:

Timeline on Maria Sharapova doping case after the Russian star was banned for two years on Wednesday:

From the shadow of Chernobyl's nuclear wasteland to international super-stardom and from penniless arrival in the United States, without a word of English, to a fortune nudging the $200 million mark.

Forces allied with Libya's unity government are closing in on Islamic State group fighters in Sirte in a month-long operation aimed at ousting the jihadists from their North African stronghold.

With star footballers now doubling as fashion icons -- led by Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo who has his own underwear label -- we pick out the top five trends at the Euro 2016 championships.

From bloody wars to gentle ribbing and occasional cross-Channel bashing, France and Britain's relationship status has been complicated for nearly a thousand years.

Ten winners of the Nobel Prize in economics on Monday warned that leaving the European Union would "create major uncertainty" over Britain as a trading nation and inflicting lasting economic damage.

The Chilcot inquiry report on Britain's role in the Iraq war could still have significant fallout when it is published Wednesday -- even though it is seven years after the probe was launched.

Eighty-four people were killed after a truck ploughed through crowds of people celebrating Bastille Day in the southern French city of Nice.

A Turkish army faction backed by tanks and fighter jets launched a coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that appeared to be faltering on Saturday.

Germany is reeling after a teenager went on a shooting spree at a Munich shopping mall, killing nine people and wounding 16 others before turning the gun on himself.

As the Dominican Republic says it will build a wall between it and Haiti to keep out poor migrants, we look at the scores of frontier fences and "peace" walls that have sprung up across the globe.

Serb academic turned far-right leader Vojislav Seselj won notoriety during the 1990s Balkan wars for his incendiary rhetoric and remains defiant since his provisional release from more than a decade in detention in The Hague.

Shimon Peres, who died Wednesday aged 93, is famed for his peace efforts with the Palestinians but his role as architect of Israel's nuclear programme may prove his more lasting legacy.

International investigators this week concluded that a Malaysia Airlines flight that crashed in war-torn Ukraine in 2014 had been struck by a missile that came from a Russian military brigade.

Ailing Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, whom Germany says was poisoned with nerve agent Novichok, is not the first Kremlin critic suspected or proven to have been poisoned.

Ivory Coast ex-president Laurent Gbagbo, the first former head of state to go on trial before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, was acquitted on Tuesday of charges of crimes against humanity, relating to unrest triggered by his bid to cling on to power.

Key dates between the US and Iran since 1979 after their exchange Monday in which the US designated Tehran's elite military force a terrorist organization and Iran called the US a "state sponsor of terrorism".