Supplied - Jamelle BouieEbola Outbreak
When the first case of Ebola was diagnosed in the U.S., the Western world paid more attention to the death toll caused by the virus in West Africa. The World Health Organization reported almost 8,000 deaths worldwide due to Ebola in 2014, with over 20,000 confirmed cases. This year’s outbreak was the largest ever recorded.
Although the virus was concentrated in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, the rest of the world was not immune to the outbreak. On Sept. 30, Thomas Duncan, who had traveled to Liberia, was the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S. He died on Oct. 8.
The imminent threat of Ebola led to politicians worldwide debating over implementing flight restrictions, sending healthcare workers to battle the infection and tightening border screening procedures.
But amidst the panic, healthcare workers and researchers across the world worked to help Ebola patients and slow the transmission of the disease, despite the dangers of the job.
Flight MH730
When a Malaysian Airlines flight traveling from Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China, disappeared on March 8, the mystery of the missing flight gripped international news outlets.
The aircraft was said to be carrying 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers from 15 countries.
An international search effort was launched right after the flight went missing. After a search spanning across the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea to the southern part of the Indian Ocean, the Malaysian government concluded that flight MH370 ended up somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean region.
The Australian government is still in the process of carrying out a comprehensive seafloor search, which is estimated to end a year from October 2014, when the search began.
ISIS
The rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was splashed across the news for much of the year. The militant group that seized land between northern Syria and Central Iraq shocked world leaders with their acts of brutality, which were seemingly everywhere on TV and social media.
Its execution of political candidates in Iraq, in addition to killing thousands of civilians in the region, were just a few examples of its extreme violence.
ISIS’s online presence heightened when beheadings of videos of American freelance journalist James Foley and Time magazine journalist Steven Sotloff among others, were filmed by the militant group and released later in the year.
The U.S. air attacks against ISIS forces in the region began in August, but a report from U.S. intelligence officials in November said that minimal progress had been made against the group.
#BlackLivesMatter
The shooting of Michael Brown at the hands of Darren Wilson, a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, on Aug. 9, sparked a series of protests attempting to reveal the dark side of the police state in the U.S.
Americans, and eventually the world, witnessed police suppress largely peaceful demonstrations with tear gas and sound weapons.
In November, the decision by the grand jury not to indict Wilson raised questions surrounding police brutality and discrimination. Following the decision, demonstrations were seen in the U.S., and internationally, demanding police reform and stating, “black lives matter.”
