Burundi

European cities are joining forces to tackle challenges arising from the continent's refugee crisis, in an initiative launched this week in Athens, through which hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants have passed since the start of 2015.

Media outlets in Bulgaria are partly free along with most countries in Southern and Southeast Europe, the 2016 Freedom of the Press report shows.

Turkey continued to be defined as "not free" in U.S.-based think tank Freedom House's 2016 report on press freedom, with its score going up six points and thus signifying a "deteriorating" trend. 

Turkey is among the countries that "suffered the largest declines" over 2015, along with Bangladesh, Burundi, France, Serbia, Yemen, Egypt, Macedonia, and Zimbabwe.

The 2016 World Botanical EXPO, one of the largest horticultural shows in the world, opened its doors with an official ceremony on April 22 in the Mediterranean resort of Antalya.

President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu and cabinet ministers attended this year's opening ceremony, along with a number of ministers from more than 10 countries. 

Turkcell has renewed an offer to establish a joint fiber infrastructure company with other operators due to the high cost of acting separately, according to Chief Technology Officer ?lker Kuruöz.

Burundi's government said on Dec. 20 it would not agree to the deployment of African Union (AU) peacekeepers, warning that they would be seen as "an invasion force."

The announcement came a day after the 54-member bloc said it would send a 5,000-strong forced to halt spiraling violence in the tiny central African country as fears grow it is rapidly sliding towards civil war. 

Tree by tree, more than a dozen African governments pledged to restore the continent's natural forests at the United Nations climate talks on Dec. 5.

The 2015 Prosperity Index is out again, ranking 142 countries across 89 variables and eight sub-indexes: the economy, entrepreneurship and opportunity, governance, education, health, safety and security, personal freedom and social capital.

UN peacekeepers in the Central African Republic face allegations of sexual abuse in 13 cases, including nine that involve underage victims as young as 11, an official said on Aug. 20.

"Nature is our first medicine," says a student  visiting Turkey's first garden for medicinal plants -- just one among an army of  researchers and experts who come here to see hundreds of potentially life-saving  species.