Editor of WQ

Cristiano Ronaldo 'best player of the year' at Dubai football gala Real Madrid's Portuguese football player Christiano Ronaldo (L) talks with UEFA President Michel Platini after hereceives the "Best Player of the Year" award on December 29, 2014 in Dubai. (AFP) Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo capped off a near-perfect 2014 on Monday as he picked up his third Globe Soccer Player...

Hello 2015 ! Dubai brings in 2015 with light and sound display Dubai welcomed 2015 with an impressive fireworks display at the Burj Khalifa tower. (Al Arabiya) Dubai sought another record-breaking celebration of the New Year with the largest LED-illuminated facade at the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered around the landmark tower for an impressive fireworks...

Dozens killed in Shanghai New Year's celebrations Dozens have lost their lives during New Year's celebrations in China's commercial hub, Shanghai. More than 40 have been injured. New Year's celebrations in Shanghai took a tragic turn when 35 people were killed in a stampede during festivities marking the end of 2015. The accident occurred 25 minutes before midnight on Wednesday at the...

Bad weather hinders search for AirAsia victims, debris Rough weather hampered efforts to recover victims and debris from an AirAsia plane that went down in the Java Sea on Sunday. Two of the bodies recovered so far have arrived in Surabaya. The first two victims' bodies arrived in the Indonesian city of Surabaya, on Wednesday, where the plane had taken off...

Monitor: Kurdish forces seize 70% of Kobane Smoke and flames billow following an explosion in the Syrian town of Kobane. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group has lost ground in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane, where Kurdish forces have now regained control of about 70 percent of territory, a group monitoring the war said on Wednesday. The People’s...

Palestine joins International Criminal Court Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas (C) waves to the crowd during a gathering to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Fatah movement. (AFP) Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday signed Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court, a day after the U.N. Security Council rejected a proposal for Palestinian statehood. The move...

Ebola spreads in Sierra Leone as deaths rise above 7,900 The year-long Ebola epidemic has claimed close to 8,000 lives, with more than 20,000 people infected according to the World Health Organization. The virus is still spreading in West Africa, especially Sierra Leone. The latest World Health Organization (WHO) figures, released Wednesday, show at least 7,905 people have died from Ebola...

ISIS publishes ‘interview’ with captured Jordan pilot Maaz al-Kassasbeh was captured by ISIS on December 24 after his F-16 jet crashed. (Photo courtesy: Facebook) The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria group has published what it says is an interview with a Jordanian pilot it captured after his plane crashed in Syria last week. In the comments attributed to the pilot, he...

World readies to celebrate New Year with a bang From Sydney to London, New York to Dubai , millions around the world will celebrate when the clock ticks past midnight. (Shutterstock) Australia's biggest city was Wednesday preparing to lead the world in welcoming the New Year with spectacular fireworks over Sydney Harbor, defying terrorist fears days after a deadly siege. From Hong...

Missed e-mails, hepatitis keep 15 from boarding doomed AirAsia Flight QZ8501z (CNN) -- Some may call it serendipity, others divine intervention. Either way, circumstances prevented two families from boarding the doomed AirAsia Flight QZ8501. In one case, it was missed e-mails. In another, an illness in the family. As a result, 15 people -- seven of them children -- are alive...

Cargo ship carrying '700 migrants' docks in Italy A cargo ship said to be carrying 700 clandestine migrants which was taken under Italian control at sea has docked in the Italian port of Gallipoli. The Blue Sky M had apparently been abandoned by its crew and at one point seemed to be heading directly towards the Italian coast on autopilot. Reports suggest...

Five Guantanamo inmates sent to Kazakhstan A protest in the U.S. calling for the closure of Guantanamo Bay. Five men held for a dozen years without charge at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been sent to the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan for resettlement. The two men from Tunisia and three Yemenis are among dozens of men...

Reports: Sonar locates wreckage of AirAsia Flight 8501 Indonesian Navy airmen search the waters near Bangka Island for debris from AirAsia Flight QZ8501 in a navy fixed wing patrol craft near Bangka Island, Indonesia. Indonesian search and rescue officials say a sonar image appears to show the wreckage of AirAsia Flight 8501 at the bottom of the Java Sea, CBS News...

Nine killed in Canada mass murder Nine people, including two young children, have been found dead at three separate places in the Canadian city of Edmonton in a case of domestic violence. The killings are Edmonton's worst in several decades. A man shot dead eight people before finally killing himself in Canada's western city of Edmonton on Tuesday. Seven of the victims,...