Charlie Hebdo attacks
Europe’s migrant crisis
Attacks in Tunisia
Germanwings crash
Saudi-led intervention in Yemen
Earthquakes in Nepal
Ireland votes to legalise gay marriage
Nuclear deal with Iran
US embassy reopens in Cuba
Mecca stampede
Volkswagen emissions scandal
Water on Mars, life in space?
Paris attacks
Turkey shoots down Russian plane
COP21 climate deal
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On the morning of January 7, 2015, two gunmen stormed the Paris offices of the satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people. Among those killed were eight journalists (including celebrated French cartoonists and satirists), two police officers, a maintenance worker and a visitor. Eleven others were wounded, four of them seriously.
After a two-day manhunt, brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi were tracked down to a building north of Paris and killed by members of a French SWAT team. Cherif, 32, was a known jihadist convicted in 2008 for involvement in a network sending fighters to Iraq. A senior figure from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, who was subsequently killed in a US air strike, claimed responsibility for the attack.
A day after the attack at Charlie Hebdo, a man with links to the Kouachi brothers, Amedy Coulibaly, gunned down a policewoman in the Paris district of Montrouge. The following day Coulibaly killed four people and took hostages at a kosher supermarket at Porte de Vincennes in eastern Paris before a police raid on the market ended the siege. Coulibaly claimed allegiance to the Islamic State group.
The three days of violence left 17 people dead as well as the three attackers. On Sunday, January 12, an estimated 1.5 million people turned out at a unity rally in the streets of Paris to show solidarity with the victims and in support of free speech. "Je Suis Charlie" became a rallying cry in France and around the world.
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Hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants have entered Europe by land and sea this year in what has been deemed the worst migration crisis since World War II. As people fled war, poverty and instability in the Middle East and Africa, they often undertook a perilous journey to cross the Mediterranean that has claimed thousands of lives.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration expect the number of arrivals to reach 1 million by the end of 2015, with the vast majority -- some 821,008 people -- landing in Greece. Half of those arriving in Europe are Syrians fleeing their country's civil war, the UNHCR said.
The migration crisis has divided EU member states and threatens the Schengen Zone's open-border policy. EU leaders agreed earlier this month on a controversial plan to strengthen the bloc's external borders to stem the flow of migrants.
The influx has continued in recent weeks despite the onset of winter and rougher seas, albeit at a slower pace.
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Gunmen killed 22 people, most of them tourists, and sparked a three-hour-long hostage crisis at the Bardo Museum in Tunis in a March 18 attack claimed by the Islamic State group. Three Japanese and three French citizens, as well as visitors from Italy, Germany, Poland, Colombia, Australia and Belgium were among those killed.
On June 26, a lone gunman killed 38 people, including several foreign nationals, at a resort in Sousse after he sprayed beachgoers and hotel guests with bullets in another attack claimed by the Islamic State group. Most of those killed were from Britain, with German, Belgian and French nationals also among the dead.
The birthplace of the Arab Spring, Tunisia is one of the most secular countries of the Arab world. Earlier this year it was honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize as a beacon of peaceful democratic change since a 2011 uprising ousted longtime dictator Zine Abidine Ben Ali.
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On March 24, a young German co-pilot barricaded himself in the cockpit of Germanwings Flight 9525 and set it on course to crash into an Alpine mountain, killing all 150 people on board. Andreas Lubitz, 27, took control of the Airbus A320 en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf by locking the captain out of the cockpit during a brief absence just minutes before it crashed in a remote part of the French Alps.
Prosecutors believe Lubitz was suicidal and suffering from severe depression. Evidence showed he had contacted dozens of doctors ahead of the crash, which has prompted calls for enhanced psychological screening for pilots.
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Riyadh announced on March 25 that a Saudi-led coalition had launched air strikes in Yemen to counter the Iran-backed Houthi forces besieging the southern city of Aden, where Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi had taken refuge after Houthi rebels seized the presidential palace in the capital, Sanaa, in January.
The crisis risks spiraling into a proxy war with Shiite Iran backing the Houthis and Saudi Arabia and the other regional Sunni monarchies supporting the return of Hadi. The conflict has killed nearly 6,000 people since March and the mounting civilian death toll has alarmed human rights groups.
Warring parties in Yemen agreed to a renewable seven-day ceasefire under United Nations auspices that started on December 14 but the truce has been repeatedly violated since it came into effect. Peace talks were launched the following day in Switzerland and negotiations are continuing.
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Two major earthquakes hit Nepal in April and May, killing nearly 9,000 people in total and making the disaster the deadliest on record to hit the Himalayan country.
A 7.8-magnitude quake struck on April 25, killing more than 8,000 people and demolishing more than 600,000 homes, most of them in rural areas cut off from emergency aid. A second, 7.3-magnitude quake struck on May 12 about 80 km east of the capital Kathmandu just as Nepalis were beginning to recover from the previous earthquake.
The tremors damaged or destroyed nearly 900,000 houses and many remain homeless even months after the disaster.
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The people of Ireland voted by a landslide to legalise same-sex marriage in a May 22 referendum that marked a dramatic social shift in a traditionally Catholic country which only decriminalised homosexuality two decades ago. After one of the largest turnouts ever in a referendum, 62 percent of voters said 'Yes' to the reform, making Ireland the first country to adopt same-sex marriage via a popular vote.
The Catholic Church, which teaches that homosexual activity is a sin, has seen its dominance in Irish politics wane after a series of child sex abuse scandals. The archbishop of Dublin said the referendum result presented the Church with a challenge.
"It is a social revolution. It's very clear that if this referendum is an affirmation of the views of young people, then the Church has a huge task ahead of it," Archbishop Diarmuid Martin told national broadcaster RTE at the time.
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Six world powers reached a breakthrough nuclear deal with Iran on July 14 that called for most of the economic sanctions on Tehran to be lifted in exchange for scaling back its nuclear programme.
The landmark agreement, the result of more than a decade of diplomacy capped by marathon talks in Vienna, includes allowing UN inspectors access to Iranian military sites and calls for sanctions to be reinstated if Iran fails to comply with the terms of the deal, both major sticking points during talks.
"Today, after two years of negotiation, the United States, together with the international community, has achieved something that decades of animosity has not: a comprehensive long-term deal with Iran that will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon," US President Barack Obama said of the deal on the day that it was signed.
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US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro reestablished formal diplomatic ties on July 20 with the reopening of their respective embassies in Washington and Havana. The deal fulfilled a December 2014 pledge from the former Cold War enemies to "normalise" relations and bring an end to the recrimination and distrust that have dominated the relationship since Fidel Castro's rebels overthrew the US-backed government of Fulgencio Batista on January 1, 1959.
On August 14 John Kerry, the first US secretary of state to visit Cuba in 70 years, presided over the raising of the American flag over the US embassy in Havana. Washington closed its embassy in January 1961, two years after Castro seized power.
The two countries have also reached agreements on restarting mail service and direct phone links as well as easing travel and trade restrictions. Earlier this month an agreement was reached on resuming commercial flights, which promises to reinvigorate economic ties between the two countries. Despite the diplomatic thaw, however, a US trade embargo on Cuba remains in place.
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At least 769 Muslims from around the world died in a crush outside the Muslim holy city of Mecca on September 24 during the annual hajj pilgrimage, the world's largest annual gathering of people which draws an estimated 2 million participants from 180 countries.
The Associated Press estimates the death toll at closer to 2,411 – some three times the number of deaths acknowledged by Saudi officials – based on state media reports and official death tallies from 36 nations.
The Sunni-majority kingdom has rebuffed criticism from its Shiite regional rival Iran and efforts by other countries to take part in an investigation into the deaths. Saudi King Salman ordered an inquiry into the tragedy almost immediately but few details have been made public since.
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Volkswagen admitted to US regulators on September 28 that it had installed software capable of deceiving emissions tests. These "defeat devices" can detect when a car is being tested and can alter the running of its diesel engine to conceal the levels of toxic nitrogen oxides it emits.
Volkswagen and other European automakers manufacturers have long promoted “clean diesel” technology, which accounts for half the car sales in Europe. Diesel engines use less fuel and emit less carbon dioxide than gasoline engines but emit higher levels of nitrogen oxides, which are believed to contribute to lung and heart diseases.
The subsequent scandal wiped billions of euros off of Volkswagen's market value and prompted its long-standing chief executive, Martin Winterkorn, to resign. Volkswagen has since stopped selling the affected cars in the United States. A number of other countries, including Switzerland and Italy, are also no longer selling them. The carmaker said in December that only a small group of employees was responsible and that there was no indication that board members were involved in what has become the biggest crisis in VW’s history.
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US scientists in September found the first evidence that briny water flows during the summer months on Mars, raising the possibility that a planet long thought to be arid and inhospitable could support life. Scientists made the discovery analysing data from a NASA spacecraft.
Although the source and chemistry of the water are unknown, the discovery will change scientists' thinking about whether the planet in the solar system that is most like Earth hosts microbial life beneath its radiation-blasted crust. "It suggests that it would be possible for life to be on Mars today," John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science, told reporters at the time.
European spacecraft Rosetta became the first ever to orbit a comet in deep space in 2014, a landmark stage in a decade-long space mission that scientists hope will help unlock some of the secrets of the solar system. Rosetta, launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2004, is accompanying comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on its trip around the sun. Data from the ESA’s Philae lander retrieved in July this year showed that comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, or Chury, hosts several organic molecules that are the building blocks of life.
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Three teams of militants attacked six sites in Paris late on November 13, killing 130 people and injuring hundreds others in the worst attack on France since World War II. The assaults were claimed by the Islamic State group, which said they were in retaliation for France’s air strikes against the jihadist group in Syria and Iraq.
The Paris attacks – which targeted the Stade de France, cafés and nightspots in the 10th and 11th arrondissements (districts), and the Bataclan concert hall – shocked the world and drew condemnation from leaders across the globe.
President François Hollande declared the attacks an “act of war” and intensified bombing in the jihadist group's self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa in Syria. Most of the attackers died by suicide bomb or in firefights with police; two other suspects, Mohamed Abrini and Salah Abdeslam, remain at large.
A subsequent French police raid in Saint-Denis killed the alleged architect of the attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian native who is also believed to have orchestrated other terror attacks in Europe.
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Turkey shot down a Russian warplane on November 24 that it said had strayed into its airspace from Syria, angering Russian President Vladimir Putin who accused Ankara of "stabbing Russia in the back".
Russia has said that the plane did not leave Syrian territory and had posed no threat to Turkey, asserting that the jet had been maliciously and premeditatedly shot down. Turkey countered that the SU-24 fighter-bomber, part of Russia's Syria-based strike force, had ignored repeated warnings to leave its airspace over the course of five minutes.
“Had we known it was a Russian plane we may have acted differently,” Erdogan told FRANCE 24. “But our pilots know the rules of engagement and have to do their duty to protect Turkish airspace.”
Turkey’s actions prompted Moscow to impose retaliatory economic sanctions on Ankara and scrap the visa-free regime it had with Turkey.
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More than 190 countries signed a breakthrough climate accord on December 12 at the COP21 climate summit in Paris that agreed to keep the anticipated rise in global temperatures to "well below" 2° Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit). Many scientists believe that more than a 2° Celsius rise above pre-industrial temperatures may hit a tipping point that could be catastrophic.
To reach this goal, countries agreed to set national targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions every five years. More than 180 countries have already submitted targets for the first cycle beginning in 2020. Only developed countries are expected to cut their emissions in absolute terms; developing nations are "encouraged" to do so. The agreement adds that, sometime after 2050, human-made emissions should be reduced to a level that the world's forests and oceans can absorb.
The historic agreement will for the first time unite rich and poor nations in combating climate change. The agreement calls for wealthy nations to offer financial support to help poor countries reduce their emissions as well as adapt to climate change. Richer countries had previously committed to offer $100 billion a year in climate aid by 2020 and will use that figure as a "floor" for further support that would be agreed by 2025.
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