The UN plan that partitioned Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, was adopted 70 years ago.

Russia has been a staunch diplomatic, military and political supporter of President Bashar al-Assad since the Syrian conflict began in 2011.

Fifty years ago, the UN adopted a resolution on an Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories that remains the reference for peace in the Middle East, even though it has never been implemented.

UN peacekeeping hit a rock-bottom low when blue helmets in Bosnia failed to prevent the Srebrenica massacre in 1995, a year after peacekeepers pulled out of Rwanda as it was convulsed by mass atrocities.

The debacles in Bosnia and Rwanda loom large over UN peace operations to this day and have brought about a shift toward more robust missions focused on protecting civilians. 

Its "caliphate" has imploded, its de facto capitals in Iraq and Syria have fallen, and hundreds of its fighters have either surrendered or fled.

France under President Emmanuel Macron has played a lead role in trying to avert a fresh crisis in Lebanon amid claims that its prime minister Saad Hariri was being detained in Saudi Arabia.

Lebanon's Hizbullah, blamed by Saad Hariri for his shock resignation as premier, has grown over the three decades since its founding into a mighty army used by Iran to project regional influence.

Hariri criticized the powerful Shiite movement for alleged meddling across the Middle East during a televised interview from Saudi Arabia on Sunday, his first media appearance since he stepped down on November 4.

A meeting between US President Donald Trump and Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte in Manila on Monday follows a stormy 16 months in their nations' decades-long alliance.

Relations between Middle East heavyweights Saudi Arabia and Iran have been fraught for decades as they have sparred over religion, oil and regional supremacy.

The Islamic State group has been driven from most of the swathes of territory it once held in Iraq and Syria, now reduced to pockets of the area that once formed its "caliphate."