The past year in foreign news

| Friday December 19, 2014 10:02

 

Saturday, 8 March

Flight MH 370 disappears

Malaysia Airline Flight MH370 disappeared on Saturday, 8 March 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, to Beijing International Airport, China.  The aircraft carrying 227 passengers and 15 crew member on board last made voice contact with air traffic control when it was flying over the South China Sea, less than an hour after takeoff, and disappeared from air traffic controllers’ radar screens.

Malaysian military radar continued to track Flight 370 as it deviated from its planned flight path and crossed the Malay Peninsula.Till now traces of the passengers and the flight have not been found and the disappearance remains one of the mysteries of 2014.

MALAYSIA M17

Just four months later, another Malaysian Airline flight M 17 was brought down over eastern Ukraine after being hit by a missile as it flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. The cornfield in which the Boeing 77 came down is said o be strewn with the naked and dismembered bodies and the belongings of 298 victims.

 

April 15

NIGERIA: Boko Haram abducts 219 girls

Terror group Boko Haram attacked and kidnapped 219 schoolgirls at a boarding school in the remote northeast town of Chibok in Nigeria.

Boko Haram further killed 42 people during a raid on Gurmushi village in the northeast.

Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan vowed to wage a “total war” against militant Islamist group Boko Haram as his government called off a deal to swap some of the girls for Boko Haram fighters in custody. Boko Haram retaliated by stepping up its bombing campaign in cities and launching mass attacks on small towns and villages.

 

WEST AFRICA: Ebola outbreak

Ebola began in Guinea in December 2013 and then spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone. By last week, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and respective governments have reported a total of 18,735 suspected cases and 7,291 deaths, though the WHO believes that this substantially understates the magnitude of the outbreak

MIDDLE EAST: Emergence of ISIS

AL Qaeda group ISIS  or Islamic State kidnaps more than 140 Kurdish schoolboys in Syria, forcing them to take lessons in radical Islamic theology.

The groups modus operandi was to behead Westerners and show them on video to emphasize their hatred for the United States of America.

In return, the US is currently bombing several places in the Middle East looking for ISIS militants. 

The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria recently resolved that ISIS has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, and leaders of the militant group should be held accountable.