As German Chancellor Angela seeks the blessing from her party to run for a fourth consecutive term in general elections next year, here are seven pivotal moments in her career. 

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has a reputation for never ducking a fight. But the tough-talking Socialist party modernizer may be about to embark on his biggest battle yet.

All along the street, houses have been reduced to rubble in the central Iraqi city of Kirkuk. The work of Kurdish security forces retaliating against Sunni Arabs after a recent Islamic State group attack, residents say.

Kurdish security forces moved in with bulldozers and excavators and demolished at least 100 homes in the Huzeiran neighborhood of Kirkuk in the week after a deadly suicide bombing in October, according to residents interviewed by The Associated Press and a report by Human Rights Watch.

In Miami, Julio Gonzalez Rebull ruminates over the failed attempt to invade Cuba in 1961. In Havana, Alberto Casanova boasts of the victory won by the Revolution. One wanted to kill Fidel Castro, the other wanted to protect him.

The invasion of Playa Giron, in the Bay of Pigs, sank one man into the gloom of exile; to the other, it symbolized the triumph of the Cuban revolution.

Following are key dates in the battle for Syria's second city Aleppo, where the army has gained significant ground in its offensive to recapture the entire city.

President Bashar al-Assad is determined to retake Syria's second city Aleppo to deal a decisive blow to the rebels ahead of a possible change in US foreign policy, analysts say. 

Assad's regime has in recent months been pressing a series of offensives to seize control of the devastated city's east, which has been in rebel hands since 2012.

From Dwight Eisenhower, who broke U.S. diplomatic relations with Cuba, to Barack Obama, who decided to normalize them, 11 U.S. presidents faced off with Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, who died late Friday.

-- Dwight Eisenhower (Republican, 1953-1961): Provided arms to dictator Fulgencio Batista, who was battling Castro's rebels. Prepared the invasion of the Bay of Pigs and broke off diplomatic ties with Cuba in January 1961.

After surviving more than 600 assassination attempts, defying 11 U.S. presidents and shaping half a century of history, Fidel Castro has died at age 90.

Here are six snapshots of this magnetic, polarizing giant of the 20th century, who beat the odds to hang on well into the 21st.

With the death of Fidel Castro, the United States has lost its last great Cold War enemy, a leader who long ago passed the baton to his brother and sat on the sidelines during his country's historic rapprochement with its old foe.

The loss of the firebrand who flouted America's superpower status under 11 US presidents comes as Washington is poised to undergo a major transition from the administration of Barack Obama to that of the brash Republican billionaire Donald Trump.

One year after the crisis that plunged relations between Russia and Turkey to a post-Cold War low, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan have overseen a spectacular revival in ties at a time when both are facing new tensions with the West.

The shooting down of a Russian military jet over the Syrian border by the Turkish air force on November 24 2015 was the culmination of months of tensions over the civil war, prompting Moscow to impose retaliatory sanctions on Ankara.