The world in 2015 review: a year of living dangerously
We look back at the global spread of jihadi ideology and terror, tensions in international relations and a glimpse of hope in efforts to tackle climate change
Good things did happen. Iran and the western powers reached a landmark agreement on circumscribing Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme. Israel was unhappy, as were Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states – but most of the rest of the world breathed a deep sigh of relief.
The year brought signs of progress – at long last – on the global effort to fight climate change, after negotiators from nearly 200 countries signed up to an ambitious deal to limit temperature rise. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel inspired many across Europe by opening her country’s borders to Middle Eastern refugees, at considerable cost to her personal political position.
14-year-old girl 'raped as revenge for election defeat' kills herself in India
Two men raped a young girl whose mother was winning the local election
A 14-year-old girl who was gang-raped as 'revenge' after her mother won a local election has reportedly killed herself.
The girl’s mother was a candidate of the block development council (BDC), a local government faction in the Mirzapur district of north-east India.
In a horrific twist on what is locally known as “Panchayat poll rivalry”, two men allegedly kidnapped the sleeping girl and raped her in a nearby field last Wednesday, according to the Times of India.
The girl, her mother and family went to report the alleged crime to the police but were sent home only with verbal assurances. The girl, who has not been named, hanged herself in her home the same day.Austria sends hundreds of refugees back to Slovenia
Over 400 refugees trying to cross the border from Slovenia to Austria have been turned back by Austrian police. The migrants had apparently lied about their nationality to be granted entry.
Austrian and Slovenian media reports say police in the Austrian province of Carinthia had stepped up language spot checks over the last weekend to ascertain where the migrants were from.
Local police say migrants were turned back since last Saturday because they falsely claimed to be from Syria or Afghanistan to be able to cross into Austria.
Austrian public broadcaster ORF quotes Carinthia's police spokesman Rainer Dionisio as saying that "most of them say they're from Syria, but a short conversation was all that we needed to know that they were not from the region they claimed to be from."
A World War II aircraft carrier's new mission: promote science education
New York's Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum preserves history while inspiring young Americans to become bold, innovative, and daring explorers themselves.
NEW YORK — That the NASA space shuttle Enterprise sits on the flight deck of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum is no small point of pride for its president, Susan Marenoff-Zausner.
Indeed the shuttle symbolizes the museum’s mission: to use history as a platform to propel future generations forward. As the first woman and non-military person to helm the nonprofit cultural and educational institution since it opened in 1982, Ms. Marenoff-Zausner wants today's students to be bold, innovative, and daring – just like the Enterprise.
“We are privileged to have all of this 'cool stuff' – our artifacts such as planes, and propellers, and collections such as diaries and other personal items of actual former crew members to excite our children about learning,” Marenoff-Zausner says. “This ‘stuff’ helps to teach them about the past and connect them to the present and the future.”
El Nino weather: Worries grow over humanitarian impact
The strongest El Nino weather cycle on record is likely to increase the threat of hunger and disease for millions of people in 2016, aid agencies say.
The weather phenomenon is set to exacerbate droughts in some areas, while increasing flooding in others.
Some of the worst impacts are likely in Africa with food shortages expected to peak in February.
Regions including the Caribbean, Central and South America will also be hit in the next six months.
This periodic weather event, which tends to drive up global temperatures and disturb weather patterns, has helped push 2015 into the record books as the world's warmest year.
Life as a "comfort woman": Survivors remember a WWII atrocity that was ignored for decades
Updated by Max Fisher
Japan and South Korea announced on Monday that they'd reached an historic agreement over Japan's use of Korean "comfort women" during World War II.
From 1932 to 1945, the Japanese military forced tens of thousands of women and girls, many of them Korean, into sexual slavery as "comfort women." Under Monday's agreement, Japan will formally apologize and offer symbolic compensation payments to the remaining survivors. South Korea will in turn treat the matter as officially resolved.
As I wrote yesterday, this dispute, and the agreement to now resolve it, is about much more than just 70-year-old Japanese war crimes. It's about Japan's evolving national identity and the fascist history it has never quite fully confronted, about liberalizing social norms in Korea that finally allowed survivors to come forward, and about negotiating what kind of place Japan and Korea will have in 21st-century Asia.
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