2015 has been another phenomenal year. Always threatened by man and Nature alike, world has managed to survive. There have been natural calamities which brought huge suffering to earthly inhabitants. Tsunamis, floods, earthquakes, outbreak of diseases- all made human life miserable. But more than that , it is the human wantonness that has ravaged parts of the human world. The Middle East and West Asia are the regions that have been on the boil for decades now, with no sign of solution to the vexed Palestinian problem. Then there are localized conflicts between nations which threatened to blow up in to bigger conflagrations but for the wise counsel of other nations. Add to it the emergence of a
militant ISIS. The emergence of all kinds of terrorist groups all over Asia and Africa have deeply scarred the human world . A Charlie Hebdo and a terrorist attack in France; a massacre by radicalized Muslims in San Bernardino in USA; series of terrorist strikes in India indicate the reach and power of terrorists. Obviously, the phenomenon has worried the United Nations and its members.

JanuaryJan. 1: Thirty five people die in a stampede during a New Year celebration in Shanghai’s historic waterfront area, the worst disaster to hit one of China‘s showcase cities in years.
Jan. 2– The Italian air force rescues hundreds of migrants stranded on a ship apparently abandoned in rough seas by smugglers in the Mediterranean.
Jan. 3– Boko Haram extremists kidnap about 40 boys and young men and kill scores of soldiers in a bold attack on a multinational military base in northern Nigeria.
Jan. 4– Pope Francis names 156 new cardinals, selecting them from 14 countries, including far-flung corners of the world, to reflect the diversity of the Roman Catholic church and its growth in places like Asia and Africa.
Jan. 5– The price of oil plunges again and falls below $50 a barrel for the first time since April 2009 as evidence mounts that the world will be oversupplied with the commodity this year.
Jan 6– A suicide blast targeting Iraqi security forces and subsequent clashes with Islamic State extremists killed at least 23 troops and pro-government Sunni forces in the country’s embattled western province of Anbar.

Jan 7-9: FRANCE – Seventeen people are slaughtered in attacks in Paris on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket two days later.

Jan 26: SYRIA – The Islamic State (ISIS) jihadist group is driven out of the Syrian town of Kobane on the Turkish border after more than 4 months of fighting by Kurdish forces backed by US-coalition airstrikes.

 

February
Feb 12: UKRAINE – The Ukraine government and rebels agree to a “Minsk II” peace roadmap, backed by France, Germany and Russia, but the truce remains fragile. A second truce is signed on September 1. Clashes intensify in early December.

March
Mar 13: VANUATU – Cyclone Pam hits Vanuatu. The cyclone, the most intense in the southern hemisphere for the year, leaves 15-16 people dead.
Mar 17: ISRAEL/PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s Likud wins legislative elections. Settlement-building continues and a stalemate in the peace process prompts renewed violence with stone throwing, stabbings, car-ramming attacks and clashes with security forces.
Mar 18: TUNISIA – An attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunis kills 21 foreign tourists and a Tunisian policeman. On June 26 an attack at a holiday resort kills 38 foreign tourists, most of them British, while on November 24 the bombing of a presidential guard bus kills at least 12 people. All the attacks are claimed by ISIS.
Mar 23: SINGAPORE – Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founding leader who led the country to prosperity, dies after a long ilness. Lee, one of post-colonial Asia’s most towering political figures, was 91.
Mar 24: FRANCE – An Airbus owned by German budget airliner Germanwings crashes in the French Alps with all 150 people on board declared dead. Investigators says co-pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately crashed the plane.
Mar 26: YEMEN – Jets from a Saudi-led coalition bomb Huthi Shiite rebels in Yemen in support of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi. The conflict has since left some 6,000 dead.

April Apr 2: KENYA/SOMALIA – At least 148 people, mostly students, are massacred when Somalia’s Shebab Islamist group attacks Kenya’s Garissa university.

Apr 25: NEPAL – A 7.8 magnitude quake kills around 8,900 people and destroys about half a million homes. A massive aftershock with a magnitude of 7.3 follows in May, killing dozens more.

Apr 26: BURUNDI – Deadly protests break out against President Pierre Nkurunziza’s ultimately successful bid for a third term. Hundreds of people are killed in the following months.

MayMay 7: UNITED KINGDOM – Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives win a general election victory that opens the door to a national referendum on EU membership.
May 23: IRELAND: Ireland becomes the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage through popular vote.
May 29: NIGERIA – Muhammadu Buhari, elected president in March, vows to wage an intense offensive against Boko Haram Islamists, linked to ISIS. The insurgents murder more than 1,500 people since then, however, also carrying out attacks in the neighbouring countries of Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

JuneJun 1: CHINA – A Chinese cruise ship capsizes on the Yangtze river in central China, killing 442 of the 454 people on board.

Jun 17: UNITED STATES – A white gunman kills 9 black people at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. The killings follow a series of incidents of police violence against blacks, reviving racial tensions in the United States.
Jun 26: UNITED STATES – The US Supreme Court rules that gay marriage is a right in all US states.
Jun 28: INDONESIA – The 2015 southeast Asian haze crisis begins, with the first reported incident in Indonesia’s Riau province. The crisis would persist for months, with the haze spreading across the region.

JulyJul 1: UNITED STATES/CUBA – The US and Cuba agree a historic deal to re-establish full diplomatic relations, severed 54 years earlier during the Cold War.
Jul 13: GREECE – After protracted negotiations, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras accepts a 3-year, 86-billion-euro ($93 billion) EU bailout that saves it from crashing out of the eurozone. On September 20 his ruling radical left party Syriza wins new legislative elections.
Jul 14: IRAN – Iran and major powers reach an historic deal aimed at ensuring Iran does not obtain the nuclear bomb after 18 straight days of talks.
Jul 14: SPACE – Pluto is seen up close for the first time, thanks to a close flyby of the New Horizons spacecraft.

AugustAug 12: CHINA – Massive explosions at a chemical storage facility in Tianjin, one of China’s biggest cities, kill at least 165 people.

Aug 17: THAILAND – A bomb blast at the popular Erawan shrine in the Thai capital Bangkok, ripping through a crowd of worshippers at the Hindu shrine close to 5-star hotels and upscale shopping malls. Twenty people, mostly foreigners, were killed.

SeptemberSep 2: EUROPE –

The picture of a 3-year-old Syrian boy’s body, washed ashore on a Turkish beach, focuses attention on Europe’s worst migration crisis since the end of World War II.

Sep 3: GUATEMALA – Guatemalan President Otto Perez resigns after Congress strips him of immunity over corruption allegations and a warrant is issued for his arrest.
Sep 18: UNITED STATES/GERMANY – Auto giant Volkswagen is hit by its biggest scandal ever owing to revelations that it cheated on US pollution tests.
Sep 19-22: CUBA – Pope Francis makes a historic visit before going on to the United States. The pontiff also travelled to Kenya, Uganda and the Central African Republic from November 25-30.
Sep 24: SAUDI ARABIA – A stampede at the Hajj pilgrimage leaves 2,236 dead at Mina, near Mecca.
Sep 28: SPACE – Scientists announce proof of presence of liquid water on Mars.
Sep 30: SYRIA – Russia launches air strikes on Syria, saying its intervention is against the ISIS, while Turkey and its allies say it is targeting moderate opponents of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

OctoberOct 3: AFGHANISTAN – A US raid on a hospital in the northern city of Kunduz kills 42 during a Taliban offensive on the city. Washington says it is keeping thousands of soldiers in the country beyond 2016 as Afghan forces can not stand up to the Taliban on their own.
Oct 19: CANADA – Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, son of a popular former prime minister, wins a general election.
Oct 23: MEXICO – Hurricane Patricia, the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere, hits Mexico’s Pacific coast.
Oct 29: CHINA – Beijing announces the end of its hugely controversial one-child policy.
Oct 31: EGYPT/RUSSIA – A Russian passenger jet is downed on its way from Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh resort to Saint Petersburg, killing all 224 on board. ISIS claims responsibility for what Russia says was a bombing; Egypt says it has no evidence there was a “terror” attack.

NovemberNov 1: TURKEY – The Justice and Development Party (AKP) of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan scores a stunning electoral comeback against a backdrop of renewed Kurdish violence and jihadist attacks. They include two suicide bombings on a peace rally in October that killed 103 people — the bloodiest in Turkey’s modern history.

Nov 7: CHINA/TAIWAN – The presidents of China and Taiwan exchange a historic handshake and warm words in the first summit since the two sides split in 1949.
Nov 8: MYANMAR – Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi’s party wins elections by a landslide after decades of military domination.

Nov 8: INDIA – Heavy monsoon rains cause massive floods in the states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. The city of Chennai is the worst hit. More than 400 people die in the floods.
Nov 13: FRANCE – An unprecedented string of jihadist shootings and suicide bombings at France’s national sports stadium, a concert hall and bars and restaurants in Paris leave 130 dead and hundreds injured. ISIS claims responsibility.
Nov 18-19: PHILIPPINES – Manila hosts 21 leaders from the Pacific rim in the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.
Nov 20: MALI – A siege at a luxury hotel in the capital Bamako leaves at least 20 people dead. The attack is claimed by an Al-Qaeda affiliate.
Nov 24: TURKEY/RUSSIA – NATO member Turkey shoots down a Russian fighter jet on the Syrian border, saying it had violated Turkish airspace, sparking a bitter diplomatic row between the two countries.

DecemberDec 2: UNITED STATES – A radicalised couple massacres 14 people in San Bernardino, California, before they are killed in a shootout with the police.
Dec 3: SOUTH AFRICA – South African amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius, who shot dead his girlfriend in 2013, is convicted of murder after an appeal by prosecutors. He is freed on bail before sentencing, and plans to appeal. 6: VENEZUELA – A center-right coalition wins the first opposition parliamentary majority in 16 years amid an economic crisis in the oil-rich nation.
Dec 12: ENVIRONMENT – 195 nations approve a historic accord to stop global warming.
Dec 12: SAUDI ARABIA – At least 20 women win seats for the first time in municipal polls, though many restrictions on women remain in the ultra-conservative kingdom.
Dec 14: FILM – The highly anticipated Hollywood premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens takes place, with some fans camping out for days seeking autographs and pictures.
Dec 16: US – The US Federal Reserve raises its main interest rate for the first time in more than 9 years.
Dec 18: SYRIA – The UN Security Council unanimously adopts a resolution endorsing a peace process to put an end to the nearly five-year war in Syria, without touching on one of the most contentious issues in the peace effort: the fate of Bashar al-Assad.
Dec 18: RWANDA/CONGO – Rwanda votes to change the constitution to allow President Paul Kagame to potentially rule until 2034. In late October in the Republic of Congo, a controversial referendum enabled President Denis Sassou Nguesso to extend his 31-year rule.
Dec 21: FOOTBALL – World body FIFA bans president Sepp Blatter and vice president Michel Platini for eight years for suspected corruption, the latest development since seven officials were arrested in a dawn raid in Zurich on May 27.
Dec 21: A TALIBAN attacker rams a bomb-laden motorcycle into a joint NATO and Afghan patrol near the Bagram Airfield, killing six Americans in the deadliest attack on foreign troops since August
Dec 22: AVIATION – The Falcon 9 rocket becomes the first rocket to successfully be launched into space and return to the ground upright. The launch and landing, operated by the firm SpaceX, is a first in aviation and space engineering.
DEC. 22: MIGRATION experts say more than a million people driven out of their countries by war, poverty and persecution have entered Europe in this record-breaking year.
DEC. 23: THE AFGHAN military rushes reinforcements to a besieged southern district threatened for days with takeover by the Taliban, the country’s defense minister says as he appealed for stepped-up NATO assistance and military support.
Dec. 24: Christian faithful from around the world descend on the biblical city of Bethlehem for Christmas Eve celebrations as an outburst of Israeli-Palestinian violence dampens the typically festive mood.
DEC. 25: POPE FRANCIS, in his Christmas Day greeting from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica, encourages U.N.-backed peace deals for Syria, Libya, praises those who welcome migrants.