Heavy rains caused flooding in Jakarta, Indonesia, in late December, killing at least 21 people and displacing more than 62,000. More than 14 inches of rain fell on Dec. 31, the most rain ever measured in one day since records in the country began in 1996.

Jakarta, currently the capital of Indonesia, is considered one of the fastest-sinking cities in the world and is prone to yearly flooding. In August 2019, Indonesia’s president announced that the capital would be moved to a...

Major bushfires in eastern Australia continued to rage in December. One town of 400 in New South Wales, Balmoral, was completely destroyed. Since the fires began in September 2019, at least 19 people had been killed as of press time, with 17 missing, and thousands of homes had burned as wildfires covered millions of acres of land.

The Australian bushfires coincided with a lack of rainfall and a record-setting heat wave that kept temperatures in eastern Australia over 100ºF for...

Violent protests broke out in India against a controversial citizenship law passed by the government on Dec. 12. The law grants citizenship to Hindu, Christian and minority-religion asylum seekers from the neighboring countries of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh while specifically denying citizenship to Muslim asylum seekers from those countries. The law was not yet in effect at press time, with a number of legal challenges pending.

A ban against protests, covering Delhi and the...