Au Revoir 2015

To the love of my life, Mickey, Tam and Adik Comot...
My darlings, your Wan Nyah is only an old spinster,
a bookworm, an introvert, a bit weird, a bit
eccentric, but one thing for sure is that, she
loves you three massively, genuinely!

It will be a new year day after tomorrow. Many people make new resolutions at the beginning of a new year. Not me, I am terrible at making resolutions and do not particularly see the need for it. Every year I know there are things I need to improve in my life. As time goes by you accommodate and you adjust to fit changes in your life. Sometimes there are things I achieved sometimes there are none. Well, even if you achieved nothing much, in terms of aspects of your life that you need to improve, of course, there are things you learned in a year.

So, what have I learned in 2015?

◾ Life is about making choices. This has always been one of my motto life and I always remind myself the importance of deciding where your life is heading. You choose. You might make a bad choice. It is okay. It is a lesson, an experience. Do not blame fate. Move on make your decision. You are responsible for your life, nobody else does.

◾ My reading is still very inadequate. In 2015 I read about 12 books. Those 12 books I have written a little bit about them in this blog. Of course there are also books that I started reading halfway and then I left them at that stage, due to my rather inorganised reading habit. In 2016 I aim to read 30 books. The reason is that, I think I bought that many books in a year. I am retired now, I should definitely read more. Reading makes me feel young, vibrant and energetic and is a pleasure too.

◾ Taking good care of yourself is very important. Your body is the vehicle that is carrying you your whole life. There are things you should take care to ensure that you are healthy in body, mind and spirit. Generally I do take care about nutrition and about mental health but I have to admit that I did not exercise enough in 2015. I was aiming to bring down down my weight to 65 kg. I managed that sometime in March or April 2015. Partly due to the fact that I had physiotherapy sessions twice a week all the while. However the session ended because my operated was more or less okay by early 2015. Now my weight is back to 68kg. ha ha ha. I need to be more focused about losing weight as it is important to my blood pressure and to my general health. Exercise is not only for losing weight but is also has many other benefits to us. Well, nobody is going to regulate things for me, so the choice is mine.

◾ Being grateful is very important. There are always things to be grateful for. Once you realised that there are good things in your life, however small and despite your difficulties, you can use that as a base to choose habits, behaviours and attitudes that promote positive achievements in other areas of your life. This was particularly true while I was undergoing physiotherapy for my operated right leg.

◾ It is okay for a retiree not to be doing anything in particular. That " anything" to most people, refers to earning extra income through various means, for example doing some businesses. It can also mean having activities to fill up your time. I am aware that in this difficult time, I have to be thrifty and learn to manage with what little pension money I have to survive for me and my three furry kids. People are different. Some people very much need the connection with other people or with a crowd or else they cannot function and would find retirement terribly boring. Not me. I have strong introvert traits and though I love to be with friends and family at times, I also crave solitude at other times. It is okay to very sociable and it is also okay to be an introvert like me. The important thing is for you to accept yourself completely and unconditionally.

◾ It is okay to be different. I am single and I live alone and to most people in my community I am eccentric. The old spinster with the cats, who doesn't talk much to the neighbours.  Truthfully, in my opinion, in Asian society, a woman is never considered really successful unless she is married. Some neighbours asked me, if I am not scared of dying alone. Of course, I am a little scared, I am just human. The thing is, I am not sure, even if I am married and I have kids, that I will not die alone. I am determined to take care of myself and to be independent till the last day of my life. That being said of course, you never really know what will happen to you in future. Have some money allocated for some emergencies, that is the best you can do.

◾ A simple sustainable life is good and meaningful. I realised that even I have too many things at home that my tiny house is a little cluttered. Hmmm.... in my younger days I did a little too much of those mindless buying. Things that I like because they were unique, beautiful or different, but which I did not necessarily need. That habit has very much lessened nowadays. I still hoard books however. Books are okay as long as I have space for them. After all, I have one or two nephews and nieces who are also bookworms like me and I can always pass my books to them.

◾ Happiness is choice, in the sense that you choose attitudes, behaviour and habits that facilitate happiness as the outcome. That being said, happiness means different things to different people of course. I am inclined to believe, happiness is how you are progressing along the journey. The destination, even though it is good to arrive at something, is not of paramount importance to me.


◾ I also learned for the most part of 2015 that most of our politicians are hopeless. They are indifferent to what happens to the country and to the people of Malaysia. They are oblivious or rather they pretend not to notice, the dire state the country is heading towards. They couldn't care less if Malaysia becomes a banana republic as long as they maintain their positions in the government.

(for a definition of a banana republic, please refer to my previous post entitled Food for Thought 5)

Happiness Now

Finished this book in two days about three months ago. I think I have read almost all Andrew Matthews books.
What I like about Matthews' books is that, they are written with simple English with some funny illustrations. They are brief and concise and straight to the point unlike some self-help books.

Some quotes from the book which I adore:

• All you can do is give your best effort until bedtime. Let tomorrow take care of itself.
•  It's not about your age, it's about your attitude.
•  How you feel about you is in your hands
•  The happiest people do not bother whether life is fair. They just make the most of what they have.
•  No one has to stay stuck. If you are serious, you can change old pattern.
•  We become what we think about! You attract what you think about.
•  Life is not that serious. We should take humour more seriously.
•  Gratitude is power. Every time you say a silent "thank you" you become more peaceful and more powerful. The first trick to happiness and success is to appreciate what we already have.
•  Positive thinkers have the habit of picturing what they want, not what they fear! What you think is what you get.
•  Respect yourself and you will be respected by others. People treat you as you treat you.
•  Everything you do matters. Happiness is a daily decision.


The following is taken from The Star. Andrew Matthews was in KL middle of 2014 promoting his 10th book entitled "How Life Works".

Author Andrew Matthews believes that being happy is a conscious effort and must be practised daily.

IF Pharrell William’s recent phenomenal global hit song Happy indicates anything, it is that it takes as little as “a room without a roof” to get us all giddy with happiness. But seriously, though, what does it mean to be happy? Some may say that it is found after years of meditating in solitude, while others may argue that it lies beneath the piles of clothes under a “Sale” sign.

Bestselling author Andrew Matthews, however, believes that happiness is a state of being – a conscious choice people have to make daily until it becomes a way of life.

When Matthews wrote his first motivational book, Being Happy, in 1987, he assumed that he had happiness all figured out and believed that it was a “nice idea” to write about, but now the 57-year-old writer humbly admits that he had only recently realised that it was more than that.

“It has taken me another 25 years to understand that happiness is not just a nice idea or an optional extra. Happiness is the foundation for having a life that works. You cannot say that ‘after I’ve ticked all the boxes – build a good relationship, good career, money in the bank – I’ll be happy now’,” said the Australian writer at an interview in Kuala Lumpur earlier this month.

His books, Happiness Now, Follow Your Heart, Making Friends, and Being A Happy Teenager have sold over seven million copies in 42 languages in 60 countries; Matthews was in town to promote his 10th book, How Life Works, and took time off his busy schedule – he was also slated to address several multi-national corporations during his visit – to talk about his inspirations, work, and being happy in general.

“The problem solving part of our brain lights up when we are happy and shuts down when we are miserable. So we have to shift the whole emphasis from saying ‘I’m going to work hard and be miserable, and one day that will make me happy’. We have to find joy and contentment in our daily lives, and that is really the fuel that will make us successful,” he explains.

Matthews shares that his books and life philosophies are inspired by Martin Seligman’s positive psychology, in which the American psychologist studied people who are happy and effective and concluded that “happy people were already happy before they found successful careers, relationships and so on”.

“Richard Branson (of Virgin Airlines fame) was already happy before he became a rich man, Usain Bolt was already happy before he became the fastest runner in the world,” says Matthews.

Yes, but how did they get happy before their successes?

“What is the common factor among the happiest people? It’s gratitude. Happy people look for things to be thankful for. Does that mean you wake up in the morning and think about what are the things to be thankful for? Some do. Others understand that life is all about what we look for. If you look for faults in your boyfriend – you find them. If you look for faults in your job – you see them.

“But if you wake up and think about the good things that happen (and have happened), that affects you every day of your life. Then you start looking for those qualities in others as well,” says Matthews.

“The essence is – the average people say ‘When I’m happy then I’ll be grateful’, and extraordinary people say, ‘When I’m grateful then I’ll be happy’.”

It is such simple philosophy that attracts Matthews’ readers to his books, which are peppered with cartoons and caricatures – these are important elements to convey his messages, he says.

“I set out to write a book for the masses. I am not interested in research, unless it makes a difference to you and me. I like books with small words and cartoons, and sometimes I am asked to speak to brain surgeons and they are happy to have a presenter who uses small words and draws cartoons. They’re straining their brains all the time and simple messages are good,” says the author with a laugh.

Matthews notes that it is has become more challenging to be happy nowadays.

“The explosion of technology tends to undermine relationships – you’re in the bedroom and you’re e-mailing your mother who is in the next room. There’s less interaction with the people we love. You have to be mindful of technology and keep it in its place.”

Nevertheless, Matthews feels that it will eventually become easier for us to just be happy, and that starts with ourselves. He says that many people have forgotten – or simply don’t know – the importance to being kind to themselves.

“Many people think that we’ll get better results if we criticise ourselves, when it is the exact opposite. Be kind to yourself, don’t criticise yourself, and understand that there is no book out there that says you have to be perfect,” he says.

The author adds that we should start “living in the present” and making a conscious effort to do just that, otherwise, we will regret the past and fear the future.

“Just as we cannot carry all the food that we would need on our back for the next 20 years, we can’t carry all the worries on our back that we need to solve in the next 20 years. For the most part our present moments are pretty much OK – unless you’re having a heart attack or being eaten by a bear, you’re pretty much okay.”

Significant Events in 2015

The world is a very dynamic place. There are wars, conflicts, scandals, controversies and tragedies going on everywhere. There are disasters, natural as well as man-made. But there are also scientific discoveries, medical advancement and technological breakthroughs. There are reforms and transformations. Good movies, brilliant books, flourishing arts and cultures are a part of life nowadays, provided that we are not inhabitants of war-torn regions of the world of course.

That being said, however, the outlook for Malaysia for 2016 to me is very worrying. Our currency is depreciating fast, our economy is in a mess, a lot of people are losing their jobs and it is hard to make ends meet for a lot of people. Our leaders are in denial of the true state the country is in. Most of our politicians are only concerned about maintaining their positions in the government and are indifferent to what happens to the country or to the rakyat.

This is the list of events that to me are significant in 2015. A lot of events, for example in sports, I have omitted, otherwise it will be a very long list. I took the events from a few sites on the web.


January 2015
Jan 3rd - 18 people are killed after the Norwegian cargo ship MS Bulk Jupiter sinks off the coast of Vietnam
Jan 7th - At least 2000 people are killed after Boko Haram raze the town of Baga, Nigeria
Jan 7th - Terrorist attack on the offices of satirical newspaper "Charlie Hebdo" in Paris kills 12 (including Jean Cabut and Stéphane Charbonnier), injures 11
Jan 7th - 41st People's Choice Awards: Robert Downey & Jennifer Lawrence win (movie star), Patrick Dempsey,Ellen Pomero (TV dramati
Jan 10th - 57 people are killed after an oil tanker collided with a passenger coach outside of Karachi, Pakistan
Jan 10th - 72 people are killed & 169 hospitalized after a mass poisoning of beer with crocodile bile at a funeral in Mozambique
Jan 11th - Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović is elected as the first female Prime Minister of Croatia
Jan 11th - 72nd Golden Globes: Boyhood, Eddie Redmayne, & Julianne Moore win
Jan 14th - 63 people are killed & 70,000 are left homeless after floods devastate Mozambique and Malawi
Jan 15th - 20th Critics' Choice Movie Awards: Boyhood wins Best Film
Jan 23rd - Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud is crowned King of Saudi Arabia, on the death of this half-brother King Abdullah
Jan 25th - Miss Colombia Paulina Vega is crowned Miss Universe 2014
Jan 26th - Libby Lane is ordained as the first female bishop of the Church of England
Jan 31st - Sergio Mattarella is elected President of Italy

February 2015 Feb 1st - 31st Sundance Film Festival: "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" wins Grand Jury Prize Dramatic
Feb 5th - 65th Berlin International Film Festival: "Taxi" wins the Golden Bear
Feb 6th - 46th NAACP Image Awards: "Selma" wins Outstanding Motion Picture
Feb 8th - 57th Grammy Awards: Best Song "Stay With Me" by Sam Smith, Best Album "Morning Phase" by Beck
Feb 8th - 68th British Film and Television Awards (BAFTAS): "Boyhood" Best Film, Richard Linklater Best Director
Feb 11th - Francesco Schettino, Captain of the Costa Concordia that ran aground 2012, is convicted of manslaughter in Grosseto and sentenced to 16 years in jail
Feb 21st - 35th Golden Raspberry Awards: "Saving Christmas" wins worst film
Feb 22nd - 87th Academy Awards: "Birdman" Best Film and Director (Alejandro González Iñárritu), Eddie Redmayne and Julianne Moore - Best Actor and Actress
Feb 25th - Brit Awards: Best Single "Uptown Funk", Best Album "X" by Ed Sheeran
Feb 27th - Russian politician Boris Nemtsov is assassinated in Moscow

March 2015 Mar 3rd - "Under the Dome" a documentary on pollution in China by Chai Jing has been viewed over 150 million times in 3 days on Tencent
Mar 6th - US State Department charges 2 Vietnamese and a Canadian citizen with cyberfraud, for stealing 1 billion email addresses for spam
Mar 6th - NASA's Dawn spacecraft enters orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres
Mar 7th - 54 people are killed & 143 are wounded by 5 Boko Haram suicide bombings in Maiduguri city, Nigeria
Mar 9th - US President Barack Obama signs an executive order declaring Venezuela a national security threat to the US
Mar 10th - The family of Marvin Gaye win a record $7.3 million lawsuit for music copyright infringement against Robin Thicke, Pharrell Williams, and T.I.
Mar 13th - Cyclone Pam causes widespread damage in Vanuatu and the South Pacific, including 15-16 deaths.
Mar 24th - Germanwings flight on route between Barcelona and Düsseldorf crashes in the French Alps killing all 150 on board
Mar 24th - The Opportunity rover becomes the first to complete a Martian marathon
Mar 26th - Richard III of England (1452-1485) is reburied at Leicester Cathedral in England, after being discovered under a carpark in Leicester in 2012
Mar 27th - Russia's Soyuz TMA-16M launches to deliver three crew members to the international space station to research the long-term effects of micro gravity
Mar 29th - Nigerian General Election - voting is extended to a 2nd day. death toll from Boko Haram attacks at 43

April 2015
Apr 1st - 56 people are killed after the Russian trawler Dalniy Vostok sinks off the coast of the Kamchatka Penninsula
Apr 2nd - 140 people are killed after gunmen attack Garissa University College, Kenya
Apr 11th - Barack Obama and Raul Castro meet in Panama, the 1st meeting of US and Cuban heads of state since the Cuban Revolution
Apr 12th - Hillary Clinton announces she will run for the Democratic nominee for US President for the 2nd time.
Apr 13th - Migrant ship carrying around 550 sinks off the Libyan coast, about 400 drown.
Apr 13th - "Avengers: Age of Ultron", directed by Joss Whedon, starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo and Jeremy Renner, premieres in Los Angeles
Apr 14th - The oldest stone tools, at 3.3 million-years old, are found at Lomekwi 3, Kenya
Apr 17th - Jazz composer and musician John Coltrane is awarded a posthumous Special Citation by the Pulitzer Prize board
Apr 19th - Boat carrying approx. 850 migrants is shipwrecked in the Mediterranean between Italian and Libya, with only 27 migrants rescued.
Apr 19th - 50th Academy of Country Music Awards: Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, and Miranda Lambert win
Apr 20th - 2015 Pulitzer Prize: Anthony Doerr's novel All the Light We Cannot See & Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
Apr 23rd - Loretta Lynch is confirmed as the first African-American woman as US Attorney-General
Apr 24th - Armenia commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman Empire
Apr 25th - 100 year anniversary of the Gallipoli Peninsula landings in Turkey by ANZAC forces during WWI
Apr 25th - 7.8-magnitude earthquake near Kathmandu in Nepal, killing 8000, leaving over 100,000 homeless, destroying many historic sites
Apr 26th - Nursultan Nazarbayev is re-elected President of Kazakhstan with 97.7% of the vote
Apr 29th - Indonesia executes 8 prisoners, including 7 foreigners, for drug offences at Besi Prison on the island of Nusakambangan
Apr 29th - German Measles is declared eradicated from North and South America - 1st world region to do so

May 2015
May 2nd - Princess Charlotte is born at St. Mary's Hospital in Paddington, London. She is the second child of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and she is fourth in line to the throne of the British monarchy.
May 3rd - 62nd National Film Awards (India): "Court" wins the Golden Lotus
May 5th - Scientists announce the discovery of the oldest & most distant galaxy known to man, EGS-zs8-1
May 5th - Archaeornithura meemannae, the oldest known prehistoric bird, is discovered
May 7th - British General Elections: Conservative Party win outright majority and David Cameron returns as Prime Minister
May 7th - Archaeologists partially discover a silver ingot of Captain William Kidd's treasure
May 10th - 61st British Academy Television Awards: "The Graham Norton Show" Best Comedy, "Happy Valley" Best Drama
May 11th - Record price for a work of art at auction: Picasso's The Women of Algiers (Version ‘O’) sells for US$179.3 million at Christies in New York
May 11th - India's poulation officially reaches 1 billion - Astha Arora named India's billionth baby
May 17th - A mudslide hits the alpine town of Salgar in Western Colombia killing over 50 people
May 17th - 24th Billboard Music Awards: Taylor Swift wins top artist & 7 other awards
May 19th - Historic first handshake between Prince Charles and Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams at the National University of Ireland in Galway
May 19th - UK inflation is recorded as a negative for the first time since 1960
May 20th - Journal Nature publishes findings of the oldest man-made tools from Kenya’s Turkana basin - 3.3 million years, the 1st found to pre-date the Homo genus.
May 20th - 5 major world banks (JPMorgan, Barclays, Citigroup, RBS and UBS) fined US$5.7bn for manipulating currency markets - some of the largest ever

May 22nd - Ireland becomes 1st country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage by popular vote
May 23rd - 60th Eurovision Song Contest: Mans Zelmerlow for Sweden wins singing "Heroes" in Vienna

May 24th - 68th Cannes Film Festival: "Dheepan" directed by Jacques Audiard wins the Palme d'Or

May 29th - Heat wave in India centered in Telengana and Andhra Pradesh states is reported to have killed 1800 people in a week
May 29th - "Jurassic World", directed by Colin Trevorrow and starring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard premieres in Paris
May 29th - Muhammadu Buhari is sworn in as the President of Nigeria
May 29th - Sepp Blatter is elected to a fifth term as president of FIFA
May 31st - Harriette Thompson aged 92 and 65 days becomes the oldest woman to complete a marathon (Suja Rock ’n’ Roll Marathon in San Diego)
May 31st - 5th Critics' Choice Television Awards: Silicon Valley wins Best Comedy Series, The Americans win Best Drama Series

June 2015 Jun 1st - Cruise ship carrying 458 people capsizes on Yangtze River, less than 50 survive
Jun 2nd - US Congress passes new legislation to reform National Security Agency procedures, restricting gathering of phone records.
Jun 2nd - FIFA President Sepp Blatter announces his resignation, 5 days after his re-election, amid FIFA's involement in a bribery scandal

Jun 3rd - 200 people are killed by an explosion at a gasoline station in Accra, Ghana
Jun 3rd - Dr. Jesse Selber performs the world's first partial-skull and scalp transplant at Houston Methodist Hospital
Jun 7th - 69th Tony Awards: "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" and "Fun Home" win 5 awards
Jun 12th - Al-Qaeda's 2nd-in-command Nasser al-Wuhayshi (Osama Bin Laden's former private secretary) is killed in a US air strike in Yemen
Jun 12th - Zimbabwe discards its own currency, offering an exchange of $1 for 35 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars
Jun 13th - Floods in Tbilisi Georgia, kill 12 people and free animals from the city's zoo including bears and hippos to roam the city
Jun 13th - Philae, 1st spacecraft to land on a comet in European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission re-awakes after 7 months
Jun 14th - "Jurassic World", 1st film to make $500 million worldwide in its opening weekend
Jun 15th - Jeb Bush, Governor of Florida, announces he will run for the US Presidency in Miami
Jun 15th - Remains of a 2,000 year old women dubbed "the sleeping beauty" are announced discovered in Northern Ethiopia from ancient kingdom of Aksum
Jun 15th - 800 year anniversary of "the birthplace of modern democracy,", the signing of the Magna Carta by King John at Runymeade, England
Jun 15th - Real estate mogul Donald Trump launches his campaign for President
Jun 17th - 9 people are shot and killed inside Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, by a 21 year old gunman
Jun 17th - US Treasury announced that the image of Alexander Hamilton will be replaced from the US $10 bill by an image of a woman
Jun 18th - Pope Francis blames human selfishness for global warming in his encyclical, named "Laudato Si (Be Praised), On the Care of Our Common Home"
Jun 18th - 18 vigilantes are killed & 53 are injured after an accidental detonation of an explosive device in Monguno, Nigeria
Jun 19th - Pixar's "Inside Out" is released
Jun 19th - The right-wing Venstre block wins the 2015 Danish general election
Jun 20th - Heat wave peaks in southern Pakistan, goes on to kill about 2,000 people from dehydration and heat stroke
Jun 20th - 1000 humanoid robots named "Pepper" sell out in under a minute ($1,600 each) in Japan, according to its creator SoftBank Robotics Corp.
Jun 21st - Hackers ground 1400 passengers by attacking IT system at Warsaw Chopin airport in Poland
Jun 21st - 94 people die & 45 are hospitalized after drinking moonshine in Mumbai, India
Jun 22nd - South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley calls for the removal of the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds in wake of killings in a Charleston church
Jun 22nd - JAMA Internal Medical Journal announces obese Americans now outnumber those just overweight
Jun 26th - US Supreme Court rules 5-4 same-sex marriage is a legal right across all US states
Jun 26th - Gunman opens fire at beach resort in Sousse, Tunisia, killing 38. Isis claims responsibility.
Jun 26th - Saudi suicide bomber kills 27 at Shia Imam al-Sadiq mosque in Kuwait, 227 injured
Jun 26th - Greek Credit Crisis: Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras calls for a Greek referendum on new bailout terms
Jun 28th - Greek Credit Crisis: Greek government says banks closed for a week and ATM withdrawals restricted after European Central Bank refused to supply emergency funds
Jun 29th - Beijing Times reports 30% of the Great Wall of China has disappeared due to natural forces and stealing of bricks
Jun 30th - Hercules transporter plane crashes minutes after take-off in Medan, Indonesia killing 116

July 2015 Jul 1st - Greek Credit Crisis: Greece becomes 1st developed country to default on debt to the International Monetary Fund (1.7 billion)
Jul 1st - US and Cuba announce agreement to re-open embassies and establish full diplomatic ties
Jul 2nd - BP agrees to compensate US government & gulf states $18.7 billion for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill
Jul 2nd - 62 people are killed after the Kim Nirvana ferry capsizes off the coast of the Philippines
Jul 4th - Unesco grants World Heritage Status to vineyards in Champagne, France along with Singapore's Botanical Gardens, Diyarbakir Fortress (Turkey) and Maymand Caves (Iran)
Jul 8th - The New York Stock Exchange stops trading for nearly four hours due to a technical error
Jul 9th - 48th San Diego Comic-Con begins (till 12th) - includes preview of new Star Wars film by J.J. Abrams
Jul 10th - The Confederate flag is taken down for the last time from South Carolina Capitol grounds 1 day after the state legislature ordered it removed.
Jul 10th - 23 people are killed & 50 are injured in a stampede at a free clothing drive in Mymensingh, Bangladesh
Jul 11th - Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman escapes from a maximum-security prison west of Mexico City
Jul 13th - Sandra Bland is found dead in Waller County jail, Texas after spending weekend in jail after a traffic offence. Her family disputes her supposed suicide
Jul 13th - Greek Credit Crisis: Eurozone agrees conditional deal to lend €86bn over 3 years if Greece passes reforms.
Jul 14th - Harper Lee's 2nd novel "Go Set A Watchman", an early 1957 version of "To Kill A Mocking Bird" goes on sale in 70 countries
Jul 14th - Scientists from the Large Hadron Collider announce the discovery of a new particle called the pentaquark
Jul 14th - Arms deal agreed between 6 world powers and Iran limiting Iranian nuclear arms but ending sanctions
Jul 16th - Scientists reveal 1st close-up pictures of Pluto, sent by the New Horizons probe
Jul 16th - Shootings in Chattanooga at a US military recruitment centre and a naval reserve training center kill 5 and injure others
Jul 17th - Suicide bomber in Khan Bani Saad, Iraq, kills 120, ISIS claims responsibilty
Jul 17th - Scientists solve mystery of sleeping sickness in two villages in northern Kazakhstan - uranium mining had caused increase in carbon monoxide
Jul 17th - Marvel's "Ant-Man", starring Paul Rudd as the titular character, is released
Jul 18th - "The Sun" newspaper in Britain controversially publishes old picture and video of Queen Elizabeth giving Nazi salute in 1933
Jul 18th - PayPal is spun off from eBay as a separate publicly traded company on the NASDAQ
Jul 19th - World Health Organization puts world's Ebola death toll at 11,284
Jul 20th - Suicide bomber kills 30 in Turkish town of Suruc near Syrian border
Jul 20th - Hacker group the Impact Team annouce they have hacked married dating site Ashley Madison
Jul 21st - HistoryOrb.com becomes OnThisDay.com
Jul 22nd - 'Oldest' Qur'an fragments discovered in collection of Birmingham University, radiocarbon testing dates to AD568 - AD645
Jul 23rd - Supreme Court rejects Bill Cosby's petition against a civil case of his alleged sexual of 15-year-old girl at the Playboy Mansion in 1974
Jul 23rd - NASA's Kepler mission announces discovery of the most Earth-like planet yet - Kepler-452b, 1,400 light years from Earth
Jul 24th - US President Barack Obama begins an historic 2 day visit to Kenya
Jul 26th - 102nd Tour de France won by Chris Froome of Great Britain
Jul 27th - Fiat Chrysler fined record $105 million by Us regulators over their number of car recalls
Jul 27th - The Shanghai Composite Index drops 8.5% in one day
Jul 29th - Over 3,500 immigrants over 2 days attempt to enter the Channel Tunnel at Calais, to cross into Britian
Jul 29th - Mohammed Omar, mullah and Taliban leader is confirmed dead (killed 2013) by the Afghan government
Jul 29th - Part of missing airline MH370 is found on the island of Reunion
Jul 29th - Microsoft launches Windows 10
Jul 29th - Zion Harvey became the first paediatric patient to receive a double hand transplant at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Jul 29th - 27 people are killed & 149 are injured after a truck runs into a religious procession in Zacatecas, Mexico
Jul 30th - In Bandar Mahshahr, Iran, the temperature reaches 46C (109F), humidity makes it feel like 73C
Jul 31st - It is announced that creative director Alexander Wang will leave Balenciaga

August 2015 Aug 3rd - US President Obama unveils his Clean Power Plan to cut greenhouse gases
Aug 3rd - The Athens Stock Exchange re-opens after a month & falls by 22%
Aug 4th - A plague of locusts in Southern Russia prompts a state of emergency to be declared
Aug 4th - Robert Downey Jr. named the world's highest paid actor by Forbes Magazine (earning $80 mil). 4 non-Hollywood actors make the top 10.
Aug 4th - 31 people are killed & 100 are injured after floods partially sweep two passenger trains off a bridge in Madhya Pradesh, India
Aug 5th - Torrential rains and flooding leave at least 178 people dead in India, in the wake of Cyclone Komen
Aug 5th - Fishing boat carrying around 600 migrants sinks of the coast of Libya, 373 rescued
Aug 6th - Eqyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi inaugurates the Suez Canal Expansion at a ceremony in Ismaïlia
Aug 9th - At Ferguson anniversary of the shooting of unarmed Michael Brown, a man is shot and a state of emergency declared
Aug 10th - Google announces its restructure as Alphabet, a holding company with Google, YouTube, Android and Chrome as subsidiaries
Aug 11th - Greek Debt crisis: European Commission announces a bailout with Greece and its creditors has been agreed "in principle"
Aug 11th - Largest ever outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in New York - 12 dead, with over 100 cases in the South Bronx
Aug 11th - Japan's Sendai Nuclear Power Plant restarts the first nuclear reactor since the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster
Aug 12th - In London archaeologists discover a mass grave of 30 bodies from the 1665 plague
Aug 12th - Large series of explosions in Tianjin, China leave at least 50 dead and 700 injured in an industrial accident
Aug 12th - China cuts its currency the yuan for the 2nd day in a row to boast exports
Aug 13th - Swedish Prosecutors announce they are dropping allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange of sexual molestation and coercion
Aug 13th - US Government formally returns to France Picasso's painting La Coiffeuse, stolen from Paris' National Museum of Modern Art in 2001
Aug 13th - 76 people are killed & 212 are wounded by an ISIL truck bomb in Baghdad, Iraq
Aug 14th - Most extensive face transplant surgery ever performed on Patrick Hardison by Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez at New York University Langone Medical Center
Aug 15th - North Korea creates its own times zone -moving its clocks back half an hour to GMT+8.5
Aug 17th - World's first flower could be underwater plant Montsechia Vidalii claim US botanists (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
Aug 17th - Bomb blast in Bangkok at Erawan Shrine kills at least 19, injures over 100
Aug 17th - 2012 Olympic 1500m champion from Turkey Asli Cakir Alptekin is stripped of her gold medal for doping by the IAAF
Aug 17th - Discovery of 7000 year old mass grave in Schöneck-Kilianstädten, Central Germany, published in PNAS Journal. 26 bodies bear evidence of violent conflict
Aug 19th - US Food and Drug administration approves Female Viagra libido pill Addyi
Aug 21st - Terrorist attack on train between Amsterdam and Paris thwarted by 4 passengers overpowering gunman
Aug 21st - Oldest "message in a bottle" - more than 108 years after put in sea by UK Marine Biological Association announced found on beach in Amrum, Germany
Aug 21st - 1st British unmanned drone hit on UK citizen outside a conflict - ISIS fighter Reyaad Khan in Raqqa, Syria
Aug 21st - European Refugee Crisis: Germany makes it easier for Syrian refugees to claim asylum by suspending their Dublin Regulations
Aug 22nd - 15th World Championships in Athletics open at Beijing, China
Aug 22nd - A vintage Hawker Hunter plane crashes onto a motorway during the Shoreham airshow in Britain killing at least 11
Aug 23rd - Destruction by IS of the 1st century AD temple of Baalshamin in ancient ruins of Palmyra confirmed by Syrian officals
Aug 23rd - 12 year old boy trips and rips 17th-century painting "Flowers" by Paolo Porpora worth $1.5m at exhibition in Taiwan
Aug 24th - China stock market's "Black Monday", Shanghai Composite loses 8.5%, sending other international markets lower
Aug 24th - Physicist Stephen Hawking presents a new theory on black holes at a lecture at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm
Aug 24th - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announces that for the 1st time 1 billion people logged into Facebook
Aug 26th - WDBJ TV reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward are fatally shot live on TV by an ex-colleague in Moneta, Virginia
Aug 27th - Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos names top Supreme Court judge, Vassiliki Thanou caretaker Prime Minister - Greece's 1st female Prime Minister
Aug 27th - 15th World Championships in Athletics: Usain Bolt of Jamaica adds the Mens 200m gold to his 100m win
Aug 30th - English author Frederick Forsyth (The Day of the Jackal) reveals that he worked for MI6 for more than 20 years
Aug 30th - Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad calls for the removal of current Prime Minister Najib Razak during 2nd day of street protests
Aug 30th - Rap artist Kanye West announces he will run for President in 2020 at the MTV Video Music Awards
Aug 31st - Violent protests in Kiev after Ukraine parliament vote leave 1 national guard dead, 100 injured
Aug 31st - US President Barak Obama arrives in Alaska on a 3 day tour highlighting climate change

September 2015
Sep 1st - Pope Francis tell priests to pardon women who have had an abortion, in a letter released by the Vatican
Sep 1st - Google changes their logo, biggest redesign since 1999
Sep 1st - EU Migrant Crisis: Hungary closes Keleti Railway Station in Budapest to try and stop migrants travelling
Sep 2nd - Earth's trees number just over 3 trillion according to study in "Nature" by Thomas Crowther of Yale University
Sep 2nd - US President Barak Obama becomes the first president to visit the Arctic Circle at Kotzebue, Alaska
Sep 3rd - Kentucky clerk in Rowan County jailed for refusing to issue marriage licences to gay couples
Sep 5th - Salmonella outbreak linked to cucumbers from Mexico responsible for 1 death, hundreds sickened confirm US health officals
Sep 6th - German police confirm more than 13,000 refugees have arrived in Southern Germany in last 2 days fleeing conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan
Sep 7th - British archaeologists announce the discovery of a Neolithic "superhenge" under 3ft of earth at Durrington Walls
Sep 8th - Pope Francis announces moves to streamline the annulment process within the Catholic Church
Sep 9th - Queen Elizabeth II becomes Great Britain's longest-reigning monarch at 63 years and seven months, beating the previous record set by her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria.
Sep 9th - Apple unveils the iPad Pro and new iPhone 6S in San Francisco
Sep 9th - EU Migrant Crisis: European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in his annual address proposes plan based on EU quotas
Sep 10th - Northern Ireland's First Minister Peter Robinson resigns in wake of IRA supposed killing of Kevin McGuigan
Sep 10th - Floods and landslides in North East Japan, centered on Joso force 90,000 to evacuate their homes
Sep 10th - New human-like species - Homo Naledi announced by Scientists and a team of female archaeologists, found deep in caves in South Africa
Sep 11th - A large crane collapses killing more than 100 people in Mecca, Saudi Arabia
Sep 11th - Sofia Vergara (Modern Family) and Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting (The Big Bang Theory) are named highest earning TV actress (28.5million) by Forbes
Sep 11th - "The Martian" based on the novel by Andy Weir, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival
Sep 12th - Jeremy Corbyn is elected leader of the UK Labour party
Sep 12th - 12 tourists mistaken for militants, are killed by Egyptian forces in Egypts Western Desert
Sep 13th - Governor of California Jerry Brown declares a State of Emergency after wildfires devastate Lake and Napa counties
Sep 13th - EU Migrant Crisis: Germany introduces temporary border controls to cope with huge migrant numbers
Sep 14th - 14 yr old Texan Ahmed Mohamed arrested at school when home-made clock assumed to be a bomb -Mark Zuckerberg and US President Barack Obama send supportive tweets
Sep 14th - Malcolm Turnbull ousts Tony Abbott as Australian Prime Minister and leader of the ruling Liberal Party
Sep 15th - EU Migrant Crisis: Hungary seals its border with Serbia with a razor-wire fence, stranding thousands of migrantsdpI
Sep 16th - Report 3 million people die each year of air pollution, more than Maleria and HIV/Aids combined published in "Nature" journal
Sep 16th - Oil tanker explosion kills 170 in Maridi, South Sudan
Sep 16th - Military coup in Burkina Faso, President Michel Kafando and other officals seized by presidential guards
Sep 16th - 700 million Malaria cases prevented in Africa since 2000 in report by University of Oxford in "Nature" journal
Sep 16th - 8.3 magnitude quake hits off coast of Illapel, Chile killing 11 and prompting evacuation of 1 million
Sep 17th - US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports 2015 Northern Hemisphere summer hottest on record
Sep 18th - Government of Uttar Pradesh, India, confirms 2.3 million people applied for 238 menial office jobs
Sep 20th - Alexis Tsipras and Syriza party declared the winners in Greek snap election
Sep 20th - Pope Francis meets Fidel Castro in Havana, on the 1st day of his tour of Cuba
Sep 20th - President Ram Baran Yadav signs Nepal's new constitution into law in Kathmandu
Sep 20th - Martin Shkreli, CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, confirms raising the price of toxoplasmosis drug Daraprim by 5,000%
Sep 21st - 67th Emmy Awards": hosted by Andy Samberg, "Game of Thrones", Viola Davis, John Hamm win
Sep 22nd - Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Seattle to start his first state visit to the US
Sep 22nd - Pope Francisis greeted by President Obama and Vice President Biden as he arrives for his 6 day tour of the US
Sep 22nd - Volkswagen admits that 11 million cars have been wrongly programmed to appear to emit lesser emissions than they are.
Sep 22nd - Palangkaraya in Indonesian Borneo records the highest air pollutant index (API) value ever recorded of 1,986 due to haze caused by forest fires deliberately lit to clear land for palm oil plantations
Sep 24th - Stampede of people during the Hajj kills 717 people during symbolic stoning of the devil at Mina, near Mecca, South Arabia
Sep 24th - Burkina Faso's interim President Michel Kafando is re-instated a week after a military coup
Sep 24th - Pope Francis becomes the 1st pope to address the US Congress. Names Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day as his American heroes.
Sep 27th - "Junts per Si" pro-independence alliance win parliamentary majority in Catalonia
Sep 27th - A "Supermoon" coincides with a lunar eclipse creating a "Blood Moon" over much of the earth
Sep 28th - DNA controllers for the age women go into menopause announced in "Nature Genetics" by reseach team from Exeter and Cambridge universities

October 2015
Oct 1st - A gunman kills 8 students and a teacher at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon
Oct 1st - Mudslide on the outskirts of Guatemala City leaves at least 131 dead and 300 missing
Oct 1st - Cargo ship El Faro goes missing with 33 crew during Hurricane Joaquin near the Bahamas
Oct 3rd - US airstrike hits Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing around 19
Oct 3rd - Flash floods on the French Riviera kill at least 19 people
Oct 5th - Nobel prize for Medicine awarded to William C Campbell, Satoshi Ōmura (Roundworm) and Youyou Tu (Malaria)
Oct 5th - Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement announced by trade ministers of 12 countries in Atlanta
Oct 5th - Floods in South Carolina a "1,000-year storm" result in 12 deaths and 9 dams to fail
Oct 5th - Governor Jerry Brown of California signs a bill giving terminally ill patients the "right to die"
Oct 6th - Nobel prize for Physics awarded to Takaaki Kajita (Japan) and Arthur McDonald (Canada) for work on neutrinos
Oct 7th - US President Barack Obama apologies to Doctors without Borders President and the President of Afghanistan for the bombing of a hospital in Kunduz
Oct 7th - Nobel prize in Chemistry awarded to Tomas Lindahl (Sweden), Paul Modrich (US) and Aziz Sancar (Turkey) for work on cells DNA repair
Oct 8th - Nobel prize for Literature awarded to Belarusian journalist and author Svetlana Alexievich
Oct 9th - The Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Oct 10th - Bombing at a peace rally in Ankara, Turkey kills at least 95, injures 200
Oct 11th - Nepal's parliament elects Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli, leader of the Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist party, as Prime Minister
Oct 13th - Marlon James becomes first Jamaican to win the Man Booker Prize for his novel "A Brief History of Seven Killings"
Oct 19th - Canadian federal elections: Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party win a majority with 184 seats
Oct 19th - US scientists from University of California find evidence life on earth may have begun 4.1 billion years ago, 300 million earlier than previously thought
Oct 20th - Migrants arriving in Greece top 500,00 for the year, according to the UN
Oct 21st - German Chancellor Angela Merkel says German view of Holocaust will not change, after Benyamin Netanyahu says idea came from Mufti of Jerusalem
Oct 23rd - Adele releases her single "Hello" - becomes 1st song with more than a million downloads in 1st week (1.1m)
Oct 24th - Even results in Argentine Presidential Election between Daniel Scioli and Mauricio Macrieven trigger 1st ever Presidential run off 22 Nov
Oct 26th - "Spectre", 24th James Bond film, directed by Sam Mendes and starring Daniel Craig premieres in London
Oct 26th - World Health Organization classifies processed meat as carcinogenic
Oct 26th - 7.5 magnitude earthquake hits northern Pakistan and Afghanistan killing over 300
Oct 28th - World Heath Organization ranks Tuberculosis alongside HIV as world's deadliest infectious diseases, killing 1.2 million (2014)
Oct 28th - Research indicating Plague dates back to the Bronze age in skeletons 5,783 years old, published by University of Copenhagen team in "Cell"
Oct 29th - China announces the end of their one-child policy after 35 years
Oct 31st - Russian airliner crashes killing all 224 on board in Sinai Peninsula, Egypt - Russia's worst air disaster

November 2015
Nov 1st - Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet's Davutoglus Justice and Development Party regains its parliamentary majority in a surprise result
Nov 3rd - Game Maker Activision Blizzard (Call of Duty) buys King.com (Candy Crush) for $5.9 billion
Nov 4th - Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta announces his resignation after protests over a Bucharest nightclub fire that killed 32
Nov 4th - Justin Trudeau sworn in as Canadian Prime Minister with a cabinet split equally between men and woman
Nov 4th - Katy Perry is the highest paid musician of the year earning 135 million, according to Forbes Magazine
Nov 4th - Plane crashes after take-off from Juba international airport, South Sudan, killing 37, 1 year old survives in father's arms
Nov 5th - Collins Dictionary name "binge-watch" the word of the year, followed by "transgender"
Nov 5th - Japan's 1st officially recognized same-sex couple union - Koyuki Higashi and Hiroko Matsuhara in Tokyo
Nov 5th - Fundão dam in Brazil collapses, killing about 23, causing a second dam to fail, releasing a massive flood of mud down the Rio Dulce
Nov 7th - Sierra Leone is declared free of Ebola by the World Health Organization (death toll 4,000)
Nov 9th - Tim Wolfe, President of the University of Missouri, resigns amid protests of endemic racism on campus
Nov 9th - World Anti-Doping Agency commission report recommends Russian Federation be banned from athletics competitions for running a "state-supported" doping programme
Nov 9th - San Diego's SeaWorld announces it will overhaul its killer whale show after controversy over the whales treatment
Nov 9th - "Reclining Nude", by Italian artist Modigliani fetches 2nd highest auction price at $170.4m
Nov 10th - Portugal's minority government is toppled by left-wing opposition 2 weeks after coming to power
Nov 11th - Montreal begins a controversial dumping of raw sewage (2.1bn gallons) into the St Lawrence River
Nov 11th - Flawless 12 carat Blue Moon Diamond sells for $48.4 million at auction in Geneva
Nov 12th - Suicide bombings in Lebanon kill 43, Isis claim responsibility
Nov 13th - Terror attacks in Paris at 3 locations leave at least 129 dead. Isis claim responsibility
Nov 15th - France launches air strikes on Isis stronghold Raqqa in Syria in wake of terror attack on Paris
Nov 16th - French President François Hollande declares the country at war with ISIS in an address to parliament
Nov 16th - Largest diamond discovered in more than a century - 1,111 carat stone found in the Karowe mine, Botswana
Nov 17th - Ireland's 1st same-sex wedding takes place - Cormac Gollogly and Richard Dowling marry in Clonmel, County Tipperary
Nov 17th - Suicide bomber kills more than 30 in a market in Yola, north-eastern Nigeria, with Boko Haram blamed
Nov 18th - French police raid terrorist cell in Saint Denis, killing 2 including the leader of the Paris terror attacks Abdelhamid Abaaoud
Nov 18th - 2 female suicide bombers aged 18 and 11 blow themselves up in Kano, Nigeria, killing 15 and injuring over 100
Nov 20th - More than half of all trees in Amazon forest at risk of extinction according to data published in journal "Sciences Advances"
Nov 22nd - In Argentine elections Mauricio Macri (PRO) wins a narrow election victory over his left-wing opponent
Nov 23rd - President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia bans female genital mutilation
Nov 24th - Tunisia declares state of emergency after an attack on a bus in Tunis carrying presidential guards kills at least 12
Nov 24th - Turkey shots down a Russian fighter jet after claiming it had flown into Turkish airspace
Nov 24th - Venezuelan opposition leader Luis Díaz is shot and killed days before the cuntry's general election
Nov 24th - Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke is charged with first-degree murder of 17 year old African American Laquan McDonald in 2014
Nov 25th - Pope Francis begins his trip to Africa, visiting Kenya, Uganda and the Central African Republic
Nov 26th - UK nonprofit Raspberry Pi releases its $5 Zero computer, sells out in a day
Nov 27th - Robert Lewis Dear (57)shots 3 dead and wounds 9 at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado
Nov 27th - "Holy grail" of shipwrecks the San Jose, sunk 1708, is confirmed found by an international team off the coast of Colombia
Nov 30th - Till 10th Dec - COP21 (21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) held in Paris
Nov 30th - Pope Francis urges peace while visiting controversial mosque in Bangui's PK5 district in Central African Republic

December 2015 
Dec 1st - Mark Zuckerberg, 31, and wife Priscilla Chan, 30, announces the birth of their daughter Maxima Chan Zuckerberg. The couple announces they will donate 99% of their Facebook shares, currently valued at $46 billion to the work of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
Dec 2nd - Attack on a social services centre in San Bernardino, California kills 14 and wounds 17
Dec 3rd - US Defense Secretary Ash Carter announces all combat roles in US armed forced will be opened to women
Dec 4th - Floods in Chennai and Tamil Nadu state, India start receding after a month of heavy rainfall, leaving more 260 dead and thousands stranded
Dec 7th - Time Magazine readers name Bernie Sanders their 'person of the year'
Dec 7th - Beijing issues its 1st ever red alert for pollution
Dec 7th - US Presidential candidate Donald Trump proposes banning all Muslims from entering the US
Dec 9th - Attack on Kandahar airport by Taliban forces kills at least 37 before Afghan forces retake control
Dec 9th - Amazon's best-selling book of the year is "Girl on a Train" by Paula Hwakins
Dec 9th - German Chancellor Angela Merkel named Time Magazine's Person of the Year, for her handling of debt and refugee crises
Dec 10th - Scientists at Cornell University announce world's first IVF puppies successfully born from a surrogate dog
Dec 11th - Unrest in Burundi leads to clashes between authorities and protesters in Bujumbura, killing at least 87
Dec 12th - First women ever elected in Saudi Arabia in municipal council elections
Dec 13th - COP21 climate change summit in Paris reaches a deal between nearly 200 countries to attempt to tackle rising global tempertures
Dec 14th - Bus plunges off bridge into Balboa River near Argentina city of Rosario de la Frontera, killing 43 frontier police on board
Dec 14th - "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" directed by J.J. Abrams and starring Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Harrison Ford has its world premiere at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles
Dec 15th - 1,000 schools closed in Los Angeles after a email threat, supposedly from jihadists
Dec 16th - US Federal Reserve raises interest rates by 0.25% for the first time since 2006
Dec 17th - José Mourinho is sacked as manager of British Premier football club Chelsea
Dec 17th - Martin Shkreli, CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals is arrested on fraud charges in New York by the FBI
Dec 17th - Libyan warring political factions sign a UN-brokered deal to form a unified government

Dec 20th - Landslide from construction waste in Shenzhen, China leaves 74 dead or missing and buries 30 buildings

Dec 26th - Floods in Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay displace 150,000, blamed on El Nino

Dec 27th - Iraqi forces retake IS held city of Ramadi (ISIS first captured in May)

Dec 28th - Japan and South Korea reach agreement over WWII "comfort women", Japan apologies and pays 1bn yen compensation

Dec 29th - Ebola epidemic in Guinea declared over by WHO, 2,500 died over 2 years

Dec 31st - US law enforcement kills 1,134 in 2015, young black men 9x more likely to be victims