For the first time, a woman was sworn in as chief of Bolivia's military High Command, Gen. Gina Reque Terán—ironically, daughter of the general who led the hunt for Che Guevara.
Members of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, which lost its majority in elections this month, filed challenges disputing the victory of eight opposition candidates.
Akhtem Chiygoz, deputy head of the Tatar Majlis, is about to go on trial in Russian-annexed Crimea, in a case opponents say "flies in the face of all principles of law."
China's new anti-terrorism law requires technology companies to provide decryption to officials, restricts media reportage on terrorist activity, and permits overseas military raids.
Amid counterinsurgency against Kurds in Turkey, Kurdish opposition leader Selahattin Demirtaş is received in Moscow—now executing a grisly counterinsurgency in Syria.
Israeli planes sprayed Palestinian agricultural lands along the Gaza Strip border with pesticides, killing off crops of vegetables and beans.
French President Francois Hollande proposed a constitutional amendment to permanently extend the state of emergency imposed in response to Paris terrorist attacks.
At a public ceremony in the Colombian town of Segovia, the government formally acknowledged responsibility in the 1988 massacre of 43 residents by paramilitaries.
In a series of Christmas eve attacks, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters killed several Christian peasants in the southern Philippines island of Mindanao.
Financial woes for the Hong Kong-based developer and an unfavorable World Court ruling in a border dispute with Costa Rica have slowed Nicaragua's inter-oceanic canal project.
Ex-CIA director James Woolsey charged that the Obama administration has no strategy for dealing with "failed states" in Iraq and Syria.
French special forces carried out a raid in northern Mali targeting the jihadist group al-Murabitoon—but a pro-government Arab militia said four of its fighters were killed.
