The New Year pardon announced by President Aliyev for several prisoners, including a number of journalists and opposition youth activists held in detention, is a welcome step.

President Dalia Grybauskaitė extended heartfelt condolences, on behalf of the Lithuanian people and on her own behalf, to President Joko Widodo of the Republic of Indonesia over the loss of many lives in the tragic air flight crash.

Estonian Aviation Board and Safety Investigations Centre will not launch an investigation in connection with an incident that took place at the Tallinn Airport last Monday with a Ryanair plane, because contrary to social media reports, it is not considered such a dangerous incident.

AirAsia Indonesia regrets to confirm that flight QZ8501 from Surabaya to Singapore has lost contact with air traffic control at 07:24 (Surabaya LT) this morning. The flight took off from Juanda International Airport in Surabaya at 0535hours.

The attack carried out by Al-Shabaab against the Halane base camp of the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), within Mogadishu International Airport, is a stark reminder of the terrorist threat in Somalia.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania allocated 30 thousand euros to the project carried out by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Ukraine. The project aims to strengthen the legal and institutional anticorruption environment, as well as international cooperation in the field of anticorruption.

President Dalia Grybauskaitė extended congratulations, on behalf of the Lithuanian people and on her own behalf, to His Majesty Emperor Akihito of Japan on the occasion of his birthday and Japan's national holiday.

The new mandate of the European Parliament officially started on 1 July with 751 MEPs from across the continent taking up their seats. Approximately half of those elected last May were not in the previous legislature and we interviewed seven such MEPs following their arrival in Brussels. Almost six months into their five year term, how are they progressing and what are their hopes for 2015? We asked them to share their experiences and thoughts.

The last plenary session of 2014 saw the European Parliament adopt a hard-fought compromise on the EU budget. Other topics on the agenda included Palestine statehood, the use of torture by the CIA and media freedom in Turkey. MEPs also reappointed Emily O'Reilly as European ombudsman until 2019 and awarded the Lux Film Prize to the Polish-Danish co-production Ida. Read our summary of an eventful week in Strasbourg.

The European Parliament gave its green light to the EU-Georgia Association Agreement on Thursday. The deal will establish deep political association and economic integration between the EU and Georgia, including the progressive opening up of their respective markets.