If you thought it was warmer out there, you were right and the deniers were wrong – Nasty weather doesn’t stop the Pope in the Philippines – A big, giant kissing protest in Vienna – And a lot more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

2014 was earth’s warmest year, according to both the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA.  The year averaged 14.58 degrees Celsius, 0.69 degrees Celsius above the 20th-century average.  Not only that, but last month was the hottest December on record.  “The globe is warmer now than it has been in the last 100 years and more likely in at least 5,000 years,” said climate scientist Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University.  Other researchers say the latest statistics negate the bogus claims of global warming deniers that the worldwide rise of temperatures has stopped – it hasn’t and it’s getting worse.

Pope Francis donned a rain poncho to celebrate mass in Tacloban, the city devastated by Typhoon Haiyan 14 months ago.  Many lined up for the service before sunset on Friday and the rain didn’t deter many people.  Afterwards he met with survivors of the disaster, which killed some 6,300 people.

Police in Niger and Pakistan clashed with mobs rallying against the characterization of the Prophet Muhammed on the cover of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.  In Zinder, Niger, one police officer and three civilians died in the violence, while a French cultural center was attacked.  In Pakistan, police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse a crowd gathering near the French Consulate in Karachi.  Gunmen killed twelve people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo last week, yelling out that they were avenging earlier cartoons with Muhammed.  Clashes were reported in Algiers, too.

African leaders next week will discuss plans to “deal permanently” with Boko Haram.  “This has to end.  We have to make this terror end,” said Ghana’s President John Mahama, now that Boko Haram’s insurgency is spilling over the borders of northern Nigeria into neighboring countries.  The group is intent on setting up its own caliphate based on its brutal interpretation of sharia law.  Its most recent atrocity is the apparent slaughter of some 2,000 people in and around Baga town.

Belgium charged five people with plotting to kill police following a series of anti-terrorism raids that left two suspects dead.  Investigators say they confiscated guns, munitions and explosives, as well as police uniforms and a large amount of money.  Germany detained two people, and France arrested twelve following the murders at the offices of Charlie Hebdo and a kosher food mart. 

The US and UK are forming a new task force to better share expertise on preventing terrorism.  Prime Minister David Cameron and President Barack Obama announced the move after talks at the White House, warning that they both faced a “poisonous and fanatical ideology”.

An Indian woman who was raped allegedly by an Uber driver in New Dehli has engaged a US lawyer to take on the online ride sharing service.  Authorities banned Uber from operating in the Indian capital, and accuses the company of failing to perform proper background checks on its drivers.  Uber says its drivers are independence contractors, not employees.  BTW, the allegations just keep piling up – an Uber driver was arrested for raping a man in Chicago last week.

In Vienna, Austria, 2,000 people protested outside a cafe that kicked out a Lesbian couple for kissing, telling the ladies that they “belonged in a brothel”.  Clearly, it wasn’t a Starbucks.  Activists say they’ve had complaints about “homophobic incidents in certain Viennese coffee houses where discrimination is apparently ingrained in the system”.  The cafe owner initially tried to defend it, but later apologized for the “regrettable incident”.