Tens of thousands of Cubans, some wrapped in red, white and blue national flags, paid final respects in Havana on November 28 to Fidel Castro, who led a leftist revolution, ruled for half a century and resisted the United States throughout the Cold War.

Hardline reformist Francois Fillon scored a resounding win in France's conservative primaries on November 27, making him favorite to win a presidential election five months from now against the popular far-right and a deeply divided left.

A blast ripped through a street in the northern Syrian town of al-Rai on November 27 in what was believed to be an Islamic State suicide bombing, with several deaths reported and security and hospital sources saying 12 wounded, mostly children, were taken to a hospital in nearby Turkey.

Cuba's most prominent dissident group called off its weekly protest march for the first time in 13 years on November 27 following the death of its nemesis Fidel Castro, the revolutionary leader whose passing has cast a pall over the island.

Israeli aircraft killed four Islamic State-linked gunmen on November 27 after they fired mortars and shot at troops patrolling along the occupied Golan Heights, the military said.

US President-elect Donald Trump said on November 26 that his administration would "do all it can" once he takes office on Jan. 20 to help increase freedom and prosperity for Cuban people after the death of Fidel Castro.

The son of a wealthy landowner, Fidel Castro turned his back on a life of privilege to lead a left-wing revolution in Cuba that endured for decades and was shaped by his political cunning, keen sense of destiny and boundless ego.

The Syrian army said it had taken control of an important district in rebel-held eastern Aleppo on November 26 after fierce fighting, with rebels blaming intense air strikes and lack of hospitals for their collapsing frontline.

Forty-four people were killed and 103 injured when one Iranian passenger train collided with another at a station about 150 miles (250 km) east of the capital Tehran on November 25, state media reported.

Russian or Syrian government warplanes pounded a women's hospital in Syria's rebel-held Idlib province on November 25, killing three people nearby, a monitoring group and an aid organization said.