Globe Trot: Kurds take on ISIS strongholds in Northern Iraq

IRAQ: Kurdish peshmerga forces have launched a massive ground attack against ISIS west of Mosul, and are counting on U.S. airstrikes to help drive back militants from areas they’ve stubbornly held since summer. Kurdish Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani, who was in Washington last week, says the United States is now providing weapons directly to Kurdish forces. His comments contradict the Obama administration’s stated policy, which has been to supply weapons only via the central government in Baghdad. Max Boot has a good piece on why that’s a “self-defeating policy.”

PAKISTAN: Taliban militants who attacked an army school yesterday in Peshawar killed 141 people, 132 of them children. “Since 2002, here in this country alone,” writes a Christian worker there in an email this morning, “406 suicide attacks have taken place. Over 6,261 people were killed and more than 13,800 were wounded. How do we bear such pain? This land is so full of religion but lacks real spirituality, knowledge, wisdom and understanding of the way, the truth, and life.”

CUBA: Alan Gross, 65, has been set free in Cuba and is returning to the United States. The release of the USAID contract worker comes as the United States and Cuba appear headed toward normalizing relations, including opening a U.S. embassy in Havana next year. President Barack Obama is due to speak on the changes at noon today. “This is going to do absolutely nothing to further human rights and democracy in Cuba,” said Cuban-American Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. “But it potentially goes a long way in providing the economic lift that the Castro regime needs to become permanent fixtures in Cuba for generations to come.”

INTERNATIONAL: Tomorrow is International Migrants Day, and the International Office of Migration says 5,000 migrants lost their lives this year at sea or elsewhere escaping their homelands. That’s double the number of migratory deaths from a year ago, making 2014 the worst year on record.

USAID: Administrator Rajiv Shah announced he is stepping down. Shah is “a smart coalition builder,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., “who has brought a long overdue, transparent and businesslike approach.” Shah is also the rare administration official to draw support from left and right.

PHILIPPINES: Recovery efforts from last week’s Typhoon Hagupit continue, with overall damage less than expected. But the hardest hit areas were also hit by last year’s Typhoon Haiyan. Here local church workers describe their losses.

NOTE: Responses to my Monday question—what theme captures the year 2014 for you?—have been steady, even profound. Keep ’em coming.