Europe ushered in the New Year with heightened security fears on December 31 as German police evacuated two train stations in Munich, citing a tip about a planned militant attack, and Belgium arrested three people over an alleged plot.

A UN plan to suspend Syria's nearly five-year-old civil war calls for listing which militant groups may be fought despite an eventual ceasefire, one of the toughest issues vexing diplomats trying to end the conflict.

The White House has delayed imposing new financial sanctions on Iran over its ballistic-missile program, The Wall Street Journal reported on December 31.

President Hassan Rouhani ordered his defense minister on December 31 to expand Iran's missile program, in defiance of a US threat to impose sanctions over a ballistic missile test Iran carried out in October.

China welcomes the official formation of the ASEAN Community and considers it an important milestone in the bloc’s integration, according to Xinhua news agency.

Its summits and ministerial meetings get a lot of media coverage, but ASEAN’s engagement with its stakeholders, partners and constituencies goes far beyond official venues.

The establishment of the ASEAN Community on December 31, 2015, with three key pillars of Politics-Security, Economics, Culture-Society, marks a major milestone of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

ASEAN ushers in 2016 as a Community, bringing to fruition an integration process that creates new opportunities for its 622 million people to make use of the ASEAN Community’s outward-looking character, economic robustness and shared regional identity for Southeast Asia’s overall development.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman announced the official formation of the ASEAN Community on December 31.

US-led forces have killed 10 Islamic State leaders in air strikes, including individuals linked to the Paris attacks, a US spokesman said, dealing a double blow to the militant group after Iraqi forces ousted it from the city of Ramadi.