Top Ten International Stories of 2015.
BOLDUAN: From the deliberate downing of a passenger plane to a refugee crisis that would divide the world, it's been a year for the history books for sure. Here's a look back at the top ten international stories of 2015.</s>ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Our top ten starts with a shocking prison escape inside the Mexican jail cell of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, a drug king pin washes to a shower and vanishes fleeing through this.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's very difficult to breathe down here. A lot of dirt, dust, this is the bike El Chapo used to run out of the prison.</s>COOPER: El Chapo remains at large and the question still lingers, who helped him escape. Number nine, a moment for the history books, Cuba and America back on speaking terms. Americans boarding planes bound for Havana, thanks to a momentous thawing of icy diplomatic relations between the two countries.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: A year ago it might seem impossible that the United States would once again be raising our flag, the stars and stripes, over an embassy in Havana.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A powerful earthquake has hit Nepal.</s>COOPER: Number eight, a massive quake ship in Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, ten feet in 30 seconds triggering an avalanche on Mt. Everest. Days of aftershocks followed. More than 8,000 people died. Very few stories are more divisive than number seven on our list.</s>WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST, THE SITUATION ROOM: Relations between United States and Iran are poised entering a new era after decades of hostility.</s>COOPER: An historic agreement to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Some hailing it as a major victory for diplomacy.</s>OBAMA: There's a reason why 99 percent of the world thinks this is a good deal. It's because it's a good deal.</s>COOPER: Others calling it a deal with the devil.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This deal doesn't make peace more likely. It makes war more likely.</s>COOPER: Powerful words from the leader of Israel, even more powerful, this moment on the floor of the United Nations. Forty four seconds of uncomfortable silence signifying what he says is the deafening violence toward Iran from the west. And number six, the bloody war rages in Syria and Iraq, sprawling mess in a dangerous proxy war. U.S.-led coalition air strikes pound ISIS targets in Syria. Russia says it's bombing ISIS targets as well.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Russians are not attacking is. They are conducting strikes in areas where there are anti-regime militias. Those strikes will bolster Bashar al-Assad.</s>COOPER: On the sidelines, Turkey fiercely protecting its borders.</s>CHRIS CUOMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Turkey, shooting down a Russian warplane.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An SU-24 Russian war plane crashed in the mountains of Syria near the Turkish border.</s>MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The Russians are understandably absolutely furious.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Putin speaking out calling the incident a quote "stab in the back."</s>COOPER: This year the world launched the biggest escalation the American military campaign against ISIS to date.</s>OBAMA: I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria.</s>BLITZER: The U.S. stepping up its presence on the ground.</s>ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST, OUTFRONT: President Obama putting combat boots on the ground in Iraq and Syria.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For the first time officially sending special forces into Syria to fight</s>ISIS. COOPER: Rounding out the top five, a rock star welcome for Pope Francis as he toured the United States and Cuba. The masses before millions.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This man is extraordinarily well on the New York stage.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Reverend, I want to listen in a little bit. The crowds are so excited.</s>COOPER: Off the cuff moments and tiny glimpses into the life of the catholic leader so many have come to love. He then went to a war zone in Central African Republic, part of the pontiff's historic visit to Africa. Number four, a city under siege.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A manhunt is underway for the gunman that perpetrated this heinous attack on the offices of "Charlie Hebdo."</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The editor of the newspaper is among the dead as well as one of the cartoonists who was responsible for the very famous Muhammad cartoon that got the newspaper in trouble in 2011.</s>COOPER: Two Islamist terrorists brother forced their way into the office of the secure of a magazine "Charlie Hebdo," opening fire and killing 12.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We walked in and it was obviously a very disturbing scene to see couple of bodies on the floor, some people crying out for help.</s>COOPER: Chaos spilling into the streets. Muslim police officer executed on camera. The manhunt for the killers intensifies. Al- Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claims responsibility. Meantime, shoppers in a Jewish grocery store held hostage not by the brothers but a man working apparently in concert with them. After three intense days, 17 innocent people are dead, two terrorists killed. Number three, a German wings commercial airline crashes killing everyone on board. The co-pilot of German wings flight 9525 now considered a culprit. Andrea Lubitz, slashed the captain out of the cockpit, steers the airbus A-320 into the ground. Chilling revelation as prosecutors hear the horror unfold on the black box voice recorder.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The screams are in the last instance. And I remind you the death is instantaneous.</s>COOPER: Lubitz flying his plane into the side of the mountain obliterating it and everyone on board.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: CNN learning Lubitz reprogrammed the plane's autopilot in flight changing the setting from cruising altitude 38,000 feet to just 100 feet. It premeditated plan condemning everyone on board.</s>COOPER: Senseless killing sparking a question that struck fear around the world, do you trust the person piloting your plane. And number two, two million Syrians run for their lives. Refugee crisis on a scale not seen since World War</s>II. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Running for their lives, Syrian refugees crossing the border by the thousands trying to escape the war and violence at home.</s>COOPER: Syria's president Bashar al-Assad dropped barrel bombs on his own people and ISIS terrorists carve a bloody path through the country. Terrified Syrians flee.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They've fired more tear gas, so people are sort of panicking.</s>COOPER: At borders across Europe men, women and children are pushed back. Tens of thousands more with nothing but the clothes on their back desperately crammed into boats destined for unknown shores. Some would never make it.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is very disturbing. 2-year-old Ilan found face down on the Turkish beach, drowned at sea while crossing the Mediterranean with his family.</s>COOPER: This picture of a toddler's lifeless body seen across the globe become a symbolic image of the human suffering. But still in many countries fear of the unknown prevails.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have some breaking news for you out of Paris, France.</s>COOPER: And number one, ISIS terrorizes the world spreading their brutality beyond the borders of Iraq and Syria. An explosion rings out outside a soccer stadium in Paris, first of three suicide bombers to detonate outside the stadium marking the start of the series of terror attacks the likes of which Paris had never seen.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The whole time he said don't run, just stay. And those words saved my life because the people who ran were shot.</s>COOPER: People flee for their lives. A pregnant woman so terrified she hangs from the side of a building to escape the gunfire. Several restaurants innocent diners are slayed as terrorists unload round after round.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are at war.</s>COOPER: The unimaginable slaughter of 130 people in Paris happening just 24 hours after this, Beirut, Lebanon, a pair of suicide bombs would blast powerful as the smoke clears 43 people are left dead. ISIS' ability to incite terror and fear across the world made clear when they do the unimaginable.</s>JOHN BERMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Do U.S. intelligence suggest the plane was most likely brought down by a bomb?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ISIS is holding this photo up as proof that it downed Metro jet 9268.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ISIS says they detonated it in Midair. And as you know 224 people were killed.</s>COOPER: Then an attack on U.S. soil.</s>BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Disturbing husband and wife drop off their little baby, drive to a holiday party and kill 14 people.</s>COOPER: A pair radicalized at least partly inspired by ISIS, carry out the deadliest terror attack in the United States since 9/11, leaving many to wonder and worry where ISIS could strike next.</s>BOLDUAN: That does it for me. We are going to leave you with a very pretty view, we hope, at central park. Ice skaters