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Dylema leads us through key events on the continent this year in a specially commissioned poem.

from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2BZzjVp

Lederhosen and dirndl dresses are making a comeback in Austria.

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A look at the year's most influential hashtags used by women on social media.

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This Canadian man is being called the world's most extreme grandpa.

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Eli Melki looks for traces of a relative who was killed at 33 during a wave of attacks against eastern Turkey's Christians.

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From the ridiculous to the more ridiculous, here are the weird stories that caught our eye this year.

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India's decision to decriminalise gay sex has taken the country back to its roots, some historians say.

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Remembering some of the figures from music, film, TV, radio and literature who died in 2018.

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Are garment factories in Bangladesh safe five years after the Rana Plaza disaster?

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A selection of the best photos from across and about Africa this year.

from BBC News - World https://bbc.in/2GIKAyK

Bahrain's high court upheld a five-year jail sentence against activist Nabeel Rajab on Monday for criticizing Saudi Arabia’s air strikes in Yemen and accusing Bahrain’s prison authorities of torture, his lawyer said.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2LGIVsj

Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said on Monday he did not see any danger to the government in the coming months as it turns its efforts to new reforms after closing the budget for next year.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2SsesRl

Rescue services in the Russian city of Magnitogorsk scrambled to find survivors after a suspected gas blast in the early hours of Monday caused the partial collapse of a high rise apartment building, killing at least two people, news agencies reported.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2LHqd3U

The main opposition camps in Congo's presidential election on Sunday complained of widespread irregularities after a chaotic vote disrupted by long queues, broken voting machines and torrential rain.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2LH8JVk

Residents of an Ebola hotspot in eastern Congo staged a mock presidential election on Sunday to show the authorities a decision to postpone the vote there due to health fears was unfounded.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2GZSpR1

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's alliance won Bangladesh's election with a thumping majority, the country's Election Commission said on Monday, giving her a third straight term following a vote that the opposition rejected as rigged.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2EXeduH

China will kick off a year of sensitive anniversaries with a major speech on Wednesday by President Xi Jinping on Taiwan, China's most sensitive issue.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2EXIysU

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has sent a "conciliatory message" to U.S. President Donald Trump amid stalled nuclear negotiations, South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported on Monday.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2RrPlAM

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Brazil's President-elect Jair Bolsonaro told him that it was a matter of "when, not if" he moves his country's embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2Q7V7mF

A senior Republican U.S. senator said he emerged from a White House meeting with President Donald Trump on Sunday reassured that Trump is committed to defeating Islamic State even as he plans to withdraw American troops from Syria.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2EUsrLX

The number of British citizens applying for Irish passports rose by 22 percent in 2018, Ireland's foreign office said on Monday, more than doubling the total of annual applications since Britain voted to leave the European Union.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2LETHPW

Acknowledging that her government disappointed many Germans in 2018, Chancellor Angela Merkel sought to pull the country together for 2019 with a call for solidarity and cooperation to overcome deep political divisions.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2GMgV7V

Special police forces dispersed protesters demanding the resignation of Bosnian Serb Interior Minister Dragan Lukac on Sunday over a student's death, detaining several people in the northwestern town of Banja Luka.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2VkAzeh