When Michel Aoun became president in 2016, putting an end to a two-year power vacuum due to political wrangling, he vowed to be the "strong" president Lebanon so desperately needed.

But as his mandate draws to a close next week, the country is reeling from an unprecedented economic crisis, with Beirut having been ravaged in 2019 by one of the world's biggest non-nuclear explosions.

With just one week remaining in Lebanese President Michel Aoun's term, lawmakers are no closer to consensus on his successor, amid fears of protracted horse-trading amongst the entrenched elite.

Here is a list of candidates who have either announced they were running for president or emerged as potential frontrunners.

Cholera is a highly contagious waterborne bacterial disease that can kill in a matter of hours.

A week before Israel's fifth general election in less than four years, one question dominates: will the hawkish ex-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu return to power?

Polls show he would likely need heavy backing from the country's rising extreme-right to form a government -- a scenario which, one expert warned, would spell "disaster" for Israel's democracy.

Observers of Britain's governing structure can be forgiven for scratching their heads in recent weeks as they watch the country reel through a succession of prime ministers without holding an election. While the opposition Labour Party is demanding an election, the governing conservatives are pushing on with choosing another prime minister from within their own ranks, which they have the right to do because of the way Britain's parliamentary democracy works.

BRITONS NEVER ACTUALLY VOTE FOR THEIR PRIME MINISTER

It is a British cliché that a week is a long time in politics. Liz Truss proved it true on Thursday when she became the shortest-serving British prime minister in history. In a matter of days, her U-turn on economic plans that made global markets jittery and the resignations of key ministers prompted calls from within Truss' party for her to step down. But the shakeup at the top is hardly an outlier in the recent history of Britain's Conservatives, whose latest troubles have been years in the making.

DAVID CAMERON'S DECISION

The Iranian-made drones that Russia sent slamming into central Kyiv this week have complicated Israel's balancing act between Russia and the West.

Israel has stayed largely on the sidelines since Russia's invasion of Ukraine last February so as not to damage its strategic relationship with the Kremlin. Although Israel has sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine, it has refused Kyiv's frequent requests to send air defense systems and other military equipment and refrained from enforcing strict economic sanctions on Russia and the many Russian-Jewish oligarchs who have second homes in Israel.

Singers, actors, sports stars — the list goes on. Iranian celebrities have been startlingly public in their support for the massive anti-government protests shaking their country. And the ruling establishment is lashing back.

Saudi Arabia's push for oil production cuts has placed new strain on its stormy relationship with the United States, though analysts say any predictions of an all-out break are premature.

The move last week by OPEC+ -- composed of the Riyadh-led OPEC cartel and an additional group of 10 exporters headed by Russia -- would reduce global output by up to two million barrels per day from November.

Lebanon and Israel said they have struck a "historic" deal over a maritime border dispute involving offshore gas fields after years of U.S.-mediated talks, in a step that facilitates hydrocarbon production.

Here's what we know of the agreement: