GlobalPost's must-read stories of 2014

GlobalPost

As the world turns the corner into 2015, many of last year's major news stories are still dominating headlines: the rise of the Islamic State, instability in Afghanistan, West Africa's Ebola outbreak, and refugee crises from the Middle East to the Pacific.

GlobalPost covered all of these stories in 2014 — and many others that haven't gained as much of the world's attention. Here we've picked 30 of our best from the year. Have a look through and catch up on the must-reads you might have missed.

Conflict

A man breaks down in tears during a protest in Erbil calling for help securing the release of Yazidis captured by IS. (Tracey Shelton/GlobalPost)

Inside the fight for Somalia's future

Here’s what James Foley meant to us

The US and UK finally left Helmand, Afghanistan. Here are 4 reasons why it's nothing to celebrate

CSI Baghdad: Meet the small forensics team struggling to deal with waves of violence in Iraq

The US is now involved in 134 wars or none, depending on your definition of 'war'

Captured by the Islamic State, these two teenagers went through hell. Then they ran

It doesn't get worse than this ruined town in South Sudan

Red Light Jihad: Islamic insurgency in Thailand’s strangest party town

Politics and justice

Mourners father in Kyiv's Maidan, or Independence Square, on Feb. 23.

Kyiv remembers its fallen 'heroes'

This beautiful video shows Ukrainian soldiers bracing for attack inside Crimean base

South Korea pulled strings in Cambodia crackdown

Attention Venezuelan shoppers: Will this ID card keep you loyal to the revolution?

The scary return of a radical, far-right Europe and what it means

#IndyRef: ‘Scotland will never, ever be the same’

Alibaba: supermarket for torture devices?

Meet the Tunisian fisherman saving the lives of migrants at sea

What people around the world are saying about Ferguson

Drugs and crime

A plastic canister of orange-colored heroin sold in Myanmar's Kachin State, a poverty and drug-plagued region near a border with China.

The world has a new piracy hotspot

Vietnam is sentencing corrupt bankers to death, by firing squad

Exclusive: After US sex abuse scandals, an accused priest rises again in Paraguay

Asia’s heroin now sold in lemon yellows and cotton-candy pinks

This housewife may be Latin America's first legally prescribed marijuana patient

Why the Oscar Pistorius saga is the 'trial of the century'

Mexico's vigilantes are building scrappy DIY tanks to fight narcos

Health and climate change

An Ebola burial team in Monrovia, Liberia handles the body of a 4-year-old girl on Oct. 10.

11 ways Tony Abbott is ruining Australia and threatening the whole world

Germany has a serious wolf problem and no one knows what to do about it

This celebrity scientist wants Germans to stop recycling. Here's why

Some people would rather die of Ebola than stop hugging sick loved ones

Food

An appetizer of crispy guinea pig legs at top Lima restaurant La Gloria.

On Location: Learning to love cold eel jelly in London's East End (VIDEO)

Red wine or white, sir, with your guinea pig?

Sign up for our daily newsletter

Sign up for The Top of the World, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning.