December 31, 2014
Bad weather hobbles Indonesia jet recovery; 7 bodies found
Bad weather hindered efforts to recover victims of AirAsia Flight 8501 on Wednesday, and sent wreckage drifting far from the crash site, as grieving relatives prayed for strength to endure their losses. "Help us, God, to move forward, even though we…
December 31, 2014
Global new year celebrations begin
Revellers across the globe are gathering to welcome in the new year, with New Zealand and Australia leading the celebrations. A giant clock in Auckland's Sky Tower counted down the minutes until midnight (11:00 GMT), when fireworks erupted. Up to…
December 30, 2014
Officials say debris of Air Asia QZ8501 is missing plane
Indonesian officials have confirmed that bodies and debris found in the Java Sea off Borneo are from AirAsia flight QZ8501 that went missing on Sunday, a statement by AirAsia says. AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes said he was "devastated" by the news.…
December 30, 2014
Gambia government denies coup plot against Jammeh
The Gambia's government has denied there has been an attempt to overthrow President Yahya Jammeh while he is abroad. A statement broadcast on state radio said that "contrary to rumours being circulated, peace and calm continue to prevail" in the…
December 30, 2014
Cargo Ship Sends Distress Signal Off Corfu Island
A cargo ship believed to be carrying hundreds of migrants near the Greek island of Corfu sent out a distress signal saying armed people were on board on Tuesday, Greek television reported. Two Greek officials confirmed that a distress signal had…
December 29, 2014
Air Asia Flight Believed to be ‘at the Bottom of the Sea’
The chief of the search effort for missing Indonesia AirAsia flight 8501, which vanished a day earlier, stated Monday that "the hypothesis is the plane is at the bottom of the sea." Bambang Soelistyo, chief of Indonesia's Search and Rescue Agency…
December 29, 2014
IS Executed Nearly 2,000 in Syria in 6 Months
The Islamic State militant group has killed 1,878 people in Syria during the past six months, the majority of them civilians, a British-based Syrian monitoring organization said on Sunday. Islamic State militants also killed 120 of its own members,…
December 23, 2014
Ukraine’s Parliament Drops Non-aligned Status
Ukraine took a further step toward seeking NATO membership Tuesday, when the country's parliament passed a law abolishing Kyiv's neutral, non-aligned status. Lawmakers voted overwhelmingly scrap the non-aligned status, which was adopted in 2010…
December 17, 2014
EU court takes Hamas off terrorist organisations list
A top court of the European Union has annulled the bloc's decision to keep the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on a list of terrorist groups. The decision had been based not on an examination of Hamas' actions, but on "factual imputations…
December 16, 2014
N. Korea Calls on UN to Focus on US Rights Abuses
North Korea has requested the U.N. Security Council not probe alleged human rights violations by Pyongyang, but instead investigate what it called "brutal" and "medieval" abuses by the U.S. In a letter late Monday, North Korean U.N. Ambassador Ja…