Afghanistan holds a successful first-round presidential election with an unexpectedly high turn-out (about 60%) and low levels of violence in defiance of Taliban threats

Hungary's neo-Nazi Jobbik party wins 21% of the vote in the country's general election

After weeks of violent demonstrations against his rule, President Maduro of Venezuela holds discussions with opposition leaders including Henrique Capriles, his opponent in a closely fought 2013 presidential election

Iraq permanently closes the Abu Ghraib prison, notorious for abuses there when in the hand of the US military

More than 300 people die when a South Korean ferry, the Sewol, capsizes and sinks due to gross irresponsibilty leading to the arrest of surviving crew members and owners of the company

An agreement is reached in Geneva between Ukraine, the USA, Russia and the EU to try and resolve the crisis in Ukraine, but soon proves ineffective amid escalating violence in the southeast of the country

Sixteen Sherpa guides die in an avalanche while fixing ropes for climbers at an altitude of 19,000 feet

It is announced that in 2013 Greece met its bailout debt payments and achieved a surplus at year's end of 1.5 billion euros, two welcome and early signs of economic recovery

Portugal is able to return to the bond market and with keen investor interest easily raises 750 million euros in a landmark issue of a 10-year bond

The Palestinian government, led by Fatah, achieves a reconciliation with Hamas, the group controlling Gaza, defined by the US as a terrorist organization

The governor of the US state of Georgia signs into law a bill that delights the pro-gun lobby, making it legal for people to carry firearms in public buildings including even some churches, schools and parts of airports

Israel responds to the new Palestinian alignment between Fatah and Hamas by withdrawing from the latest round of peace talks

More than 250 Nigerian girls are abducted from their school in the north of the country by Boko Haram, a Muslim terrorist group seeking to impose sharia law

Two recent popes, John XXIII and John Paul II, are canonized on the same day, representing respectively the reformist and the conservative movements within the Roman Catholic church

In response to the Ukraine crisis President Obama imposes economc sanctions on people within President Putin's close circle

The World Health Organization (WHO) issues a report warning that a growing resistance by bacteria to existing antiobiotics represents a 'major global threat' and requires urgent research to develop replacements

In a take-over by Chilean students at the University del Mar an artist calling himself Papas Fritas frees students from allegedly $500 million of debt by burning the signed documents for their student loans

The value of the bitcoin, a unit of digital currency, rises from $118 in May 2013 to reach $1147 in December before falling to $438 in May 2014

Two mudslides bury a remote village in the Argo district in northeast Afghanistan, causing more than 2000 deaths

Less than two weeks after the abduction of the Nigerian schoolgirls Boko Haram militants make a night raid on the towns of Gamboru and Ngala, killing about 300 people

Separatists in the east Ukraine regions of Luhansk and Donetzk hold a referndum asking their supporters whether they want to establish semi-independent states

An explosion in a Turkish coal mine at Zoma, followed by a fire deep underground, causes more than 300 deaths in Turkey's worst ever industrial disaster

A sudden violent outbreak of Vietnamese resentment of China, over a territorial dispute, causes China to evacuate thousands of its citizens

Narendra Modi leads the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to a crushing election victory over the Congress party and thus becomes the president of India

Chilean and French scientists discover caves on a remote island in Patagonia which could provide valuable evidence as to how continents were formed and subsequently moved apart