Up to 2,000 are feared dead in an ongoing massacre after Boko Haram seized Baga, a town on Nigeria's border with Chad in Borno state. The town was reportedly "razed to the ground."
War across large swaths of the Middle East and Africa in the first six months of 2014 forcibly displaced some 5.5 million people, signalling yet another record, the UN reports.
Blogger Raif Badawi, convicted of "offenses to Islamic precepts" in Saudi Arabia, is to receieve 1,000 lashes at the start of his 15-year prison term.
Blogger Cheikh Ould Mohamed of Mauritania was sentenced to death for apostasy after a court convicted him of "speaking lightly of the Prophet Mohammed" on websites.
A sweeping "anti-terrorism" decree and expanded crackdown on opposition come as Egypt's President al-Sisi is making overtures to the Copts and invoking pluralism.
Kurdish forces made further gains against ISIS at Kobani in the final days of 2014, while the Peshmerga are preparing an offensive to drive the jihadis from Kurdish lands in Iraq.
Warplanes under the command of renegade Gen. Khalifa Haftar fired missiles at Misrata's rebel-held airport, as Libya's oil exports remain effectively paralyzed by civil war.
Another major bust of an accused Mexican cartel operative in Chicago this time involves the Guerreros Unidos—the gang named in the the disappearance of 43 college students.
Official ceremonies marked ground-breaking on Nicaragua's inter-oceanic canal project—marred by angry campesino protests, with scores detained and injured.
Riverboats were sent to evacuate a rainforest village after it was raided by an isolated indigenous band, apparently pushed from its lands by illegal loggers and narco-traffickers.
Brazil's Congress concluded work for the year, having failed to approve a constitutional amendment aimed at gutting the process of indigenous land demarcation.
Israel's Supreme Court issued a rare ruling to demolish a Jewish settlement at Amona in the West Bank. The settlers pledge resistance as a deadline for eviction looms.
