The world in 2015 review: a year of living dangerously

Good things did happen. Iran and the western powers reached a landmark agreement on circumscribing Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme. Israel was unhappy, as were Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states – but most of the rest of the world breathed a deep sigh of relief.

The year brought signs of progress – at long last – on the global effort to fight climate change, after negotiators from nearly 200 countries signed up to an ambitious deal to limit temperature rise. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel inspired many across Europe by opening her country’s borders to Middle Eastern refugees, at considerable cost to her personal political position.

From Argentina to Myanmar, where Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi led an opposition landslide election victory ending absolute army rule, several countries enjoyed an overdue fresh start. In China, the Communist party finally revoked its oppressive one-child policy. And in Havana and Washington DC, the flags of the former arch-foes were hoisted once again following the restoration of diplomatic relations.

But it was also a year of many more frightening and tragic events. From the ungoverned spaces of northern Nigeria and eastern Syria to the cruel shores of Greece and Turkey, from the streets of Paris to the holiday resorts of Tunisia and Egypt, from the waters of the South China Sea to the icy sea-lanes of the North Atlantic, 2015 was a year of tumult, terror and transition. More than ever, it was a year of living dangerously.

Conflicts and confrontations

The year saw the coming of age, in the worst possible sense, of Islamic State (Isis) and those who claim to be inspired or directed by the terrorist group.

Isis’s expanding reach brought mass murder to Kuwait, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Tunisia and Paris. In the French capital the year began with an attack on a kosher supermarket by a man who had declared allegiance to Isis(the Charlie Hebdo attacks were claimed by an al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen), and drew to a close amid the carnage of another, even more murderous assault in the French capital.