January 3, 2015 (Saturday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- Boko Haram
- Fleeing villagers from a remote part of the Borno State report that Boko Haram had three days prior kidnapped around 40 boys and young men. (BBC)
Arts and culture
- Turkey permits the building of a Syriac church in Istanbul, the first construction of a Christian house of worship allowed since the founding of the modern republic in 1923. (Dawn) (BGN News)
Disasters and accidents
- The Singapore-registered cargo ship MV Höegh Osaka runs aground on Bramble Bank off the coast of the Isle of Wight, in the entrance to Southampton Water. (BBC News)
- MS Bulk Jupiter, a Norwegian-owned cargo ship, sinks off the coast of Vietnam, with eighteen dead and one survivor. (KRON)
- The Cypriot-registered cargo ship Cemfjord sinks off the northern coast of Scotland leaving eight onboard missing. (BBC News)
Law and crime
- A prison in Bruges, Belgium, will euthanise serial rapist and murderer Frank Van Den Bleeken on January 11. (International Business Times)
Politics and elections
- Greek parliamentary election, 2015
- Former Prime Minister George Papandreou announces the formation of a new party, Movement of Democratic Socialists, threatening to push the long-dominant PASOK under the election threshold. (Al Jazeera) (Reuters)