News & Updates

In 2010, Cambridge professor Nicholas Boyle said “a great event” in the year 2014 would be pivotal in determining whether the 21st Century would bring peace and prosperity or war and poverty. With the loss of two Malaysia Airlines flights, the kidnapping of 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria, war in Gaza and Israel, the emergence of militant group Islamic State in the Middle East, tensions in Europe over Ukraine and the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, his prediction may seem prescient. BBC News takes a look at some of the crises facing world leaders, as Nato members gather in the Welsh city of Newport for a summit. BBC World News will be asking if the world is slipping out of control – in a special programme, New World Disorder, at 13:00 GMT (14:00 BST). Tensions erupted when Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea in March. Two months later, pro-Russian gunmen declared independence in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Some 2,600 people have been killed in fighting