Paris attacks, mass migrations, global turmoil mark 2015

2015 saw its share of turmoil across the world with terrorist attacks and natural disasters taking a heavy toll.
At least 130 people were killed in two terror attacks in November in Paris, which was also rocked earlier in January when the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a supermarket were attacked by gunmen.
In March, the co-pilot of a Germanwings jet rammed the plane into the French Alps, killing all 150 people aboard.
A mass shooting in California, twin bomb blasts in Ankara, a devastating earthquake in Nepal, a stampede at Haj which claimed over 700 lives including 14 Indians and the influx of refugees and migrants from Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea and other regions into Europe made headlines this year.

Coordinated efforts were made to evacuate Indians trapped in the Yemen civil war.
In neighbouring Nepal, Bidhya Devi Bhandari was elected its first woman president.

Following is the diary of international events:
Jan 2: Colombo: Sri Lanka's beleaguered President Mahinda Rajapaksa appealed to the minority Tamils to back him, the "known devil", in the January 8 presidential polls as he campaigned in the former LTTE bastion.
Jan 4: Jakarta/Singapore: Four more bodies and a fifth large object belonging to the crashed AirAsia jet were retrieved from the Java Sea as rescuers battled bad weather in their efforts to reach the fuselage believed to contain the remaining victims besides the crucial black box.

Jan 4: Islamabad: At least 10 militants, including a top Taliban commander, were killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan's restive North Waziristan tribal region near the Afghan border, the first such attack this year by CIA-operated pilotless aircraft in the country.
Jan 5: Washington: US Secretary of State John Kerry has not issued any certificate to the Congress on the progress made by Pakistan in taking action against terrorist groups, his spokesperson says.
Jan 5: Peshawar: The government of Pakistan's restive Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province announced a combined bounty of Rs 760 million for 615 high-profile militants, including a Rs 10 million bounty for information leading to the arrest or death of Taliban chief Mullah Fazlullah.

Jan 6: Dhaka: Bangladesh authorities threatened to slap murder charges on the country's besieged opposition leader Khaleda Zia and arrested her deputy for inciting a series of deadly street violence by party supporters.
Jan 7: Paris: Heavily armed men shouting Islamist slogans
stormed the Paris headquarters of a satirical weekly, killing 12 people in cold blood in the worst attack in France in decades.
Jan 7: United Nations: UN chief Ban Ki-moon has appointed senior Indian diplomat Atul Khare as the Under Secretary-General for Field Support to head the department that provides dedicated support to peacekeeping missions around the world.

Jan 8: Paris: An 18-year-old implicated alongside two brothers in the bloody attack against a satirical weekly in Paris has surrendered to police, according to a source close to the case.
Jan 8: Dhaka: Bangladesh opposition vowed to continue its nationwide blockade as three more people were killed in the violence after the first anniversary of the controversial polls, raising uncertainty over the annual Muslim congregation, said to be the second largest after Haj, scheduled to begin tomorrow.
Jan 9: Paris: Three terrorists who seized hostages at separate locations and ignited fear across Paris were killed along with three of their hostages as the gunmen clashed with thousands of French security forces.

Jan 9: Colombo: In a stunning verdict, Sri Lankan voters ousted President Mahinda Rajapaksa from power, ending a 10-year rule that was marked by allegations of family rule, corruption and authoritarianism and chose in his place his one-time minister Maithripala Sirisena, who has vowed to
Jan 10: London: Justifying the decision to install a Mahatma Gandhi statue at the Parliament Square, Prime Minister David Cameron says the initiative would lead to Britain cementing its historical connection with India.
Jan 10: Paris: France deployed thousands of security forces to thwart new attacks and hunt down a suspected accomplice in a rampage by terrorists linked to al-Qaeda in Yemen that scarred the nation after the killing of 17 people in terror strikes.

Jan 11: Berlin: A German newspaper was targeted in an arson attack for reprinting controversial cartoons from French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo and two people were arrested for involvement in the assault.
Jan 11: Karachi: At least 62 people, including women and children, were killed when their overcrowded bus collided head-on with a speeding oil tanker, sparking a major fire in southern Pakistan, in the deadliest road accident to hit the country in recent times.
Feb 5: Washington: Welcoming India's ratification of the
Convention on Supplementary Compensation for nuclear damage, the US hopes that the move will soon see deals for American companies to build new reactors and cheap energy to millions of Indians.

Feb 5: Kathmandu: Over 150 trucks from India enter Nepal through a key border trade point for the first time in more than four months as angry traders from both sides burn down tents set up by agitating Madhesis who enforced a crippling blockade that led to severe shortages in the landlocked nation.
Feb 6: Damascus: Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem warns that Saudi or other foreign ground troops entering Syria would "return home in wooden coffins," and calls on rebel groups fighting a massive government offensive in the north to "come to their senses" and lay down their weapons.
Feb 6: Lagos (Nigeria): A growing Lassa fever outbreak in Nigeria has kills 101 people, as West Africa battles to contain a flare up of the virus, according to data from the nation's health authorities released today.

Feb 7: Seoul: North Korea says it has successfully put a satellite into orbit, with a rocket launch widely condemned as another defiant step towards a missile capable of striking the US mainland.
Feb 8: Kathmandu: Nepal's Madhesis protesting against a new Constitution calls off their nearly five-month long crippling blockade at the border with India that led to severe shortages of fuel, medicine and other essentials in the landlocked nation and strained Indo-Nepal ties.
Feb 9: Tuesday: Kathmandu: Nepal's former Prime Minister Sushil Koirala, a moderate leader who had backed friendly ties with India and was instrumental in the ushering in of the new Constitution last year, dies here.

Feb 10: Karachi: Sonam Kapoor-starrer "Neerja", based on real incidents during the hijacking of the Pan Am Flight 73 at the Karachi airport in 1986, has been banned in Pakistan allegedly for showing the country in poor light.
Feb 11: Washington: In a landmark discovery for physics and astronomy, international scientists says they have glimpsed the first direct evidence of gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time, which Albert Einstein predicted a century ago.
Feb 11: Melbourne: Australia appoints veteran woman career diplomat Harinder Sidhu as its next High Commissioner to India, the second Indian-origin official to serve as the country's envoy to India in less than five years.

Feb 11: Lahore: The prosecution in the 26/11 attack case decides to challenge a Pakistan anti-terrorism court's rejection of their plea to form a commission to examine a boat used by LeT terrorists to reach Mumbai in 2008.
Feb 12: Islamabad: Pakistan alleges that the Nuclear Supplier Group's "discriminatory waiver" to India and the Indo-US nuclear deal have allowed it to increase its fissile material and disturb the strategic stability in South Asia.
Feb 13: Washington: Notwithstanding India's strong protest, the Obama Administration justifies its move to sell eight F-16 fighters to Pakistan claiming that these jets were "critical" to the country's counter-terrorism operations.