Part of your question is in violation of the "no current events" rule. You may want to edit that part out.

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/35vtov/discuss_the_causes_of_world_war_i_what_were_the/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/301648/is_there_merit_to_the_claim_that_russia_was/

Here's some questions I answered earlier; this should give you some idea of the causes of the war, but note that it is a heavily debated subject with many different viewpoints.

I guess the shortest answer I could give would be that aggressive German foreign Policy and the Naval Arms Race lead to the Triple Entente; the decline of the Ottoman Empire in Europe gave way to the 'Eastern Question' and competition between Austria and Russia, laying the foundations for the July Crisis.

Had the Austrians been willing to except a peaceful solution, and the Germans been willing to accept it, peace could have resulted. This did not happen, and the Russian mobilization probably just made things worse by giving the Germans an excuse trigger Aufmarsch West (deployment plan West, AKA Schlieffen Plan, AKA the Moltke Plan). Conflict might have broken out at some point in the future, such as over Albania, but this is pure speculation; what happened, happened.

There are several different causes for WW1, both events that happened immediately before the outbreak and decades before the war.

As I've said there are many reasons but a good place to start would be with The Congress of Vienna which took place in 1814-1815 after the fall of Napoleon. The goal of this congress was to rebuild the european map after the napoleonic wars and create a balance of power so that no European nation could start a war in the scale they had just witnessed. This was also one of the reasons why France was allowed to keep their position as a major power after Napoleons fall. One would also have regular congresses to prevent major wars. Even though the 19th century had its fare share of wars this system worked relatively well and no war with the scale of the Napoleonic Wars was seen until the First World War.

But in the 1850's this system began to fall apart as the major powers were unwilling to put the system's stability above their own interests. Evidence of this can be seen in the Crimean War (1854-1856) where former allies clashed.

The balance of power was severly altered by the creation of the German Empire and the Kingdom of Italy. Germany had resources manpower and industry and Bismarck underminded the whole system set in place at Vienna with his against Denmark, Austria and France. Bismarck understood the damage he had done to the overall balance of power in Europe and tried to repair the damage by creating alliances. The idea of making alliances in peacetime was something completly new at this time. Earlier one made alliances only during war because of the interest of defeating a common enemy. Bismarck made an alliance with Austria-Hungary in 1879(and one with Russia in 1873 which would eventually fall through), and with Italy in 82. General Chief of Staff in Germany Helmuth von Molkte makes several suggestions to make preventive wars against both Russia and France before either country becomes strong enough to challenge Germany (France had unexpectedly recovered very quickly after the previous war with Germany). Relations with Russia worsens and in 1894 Germany's biggest nightmare becomes a reality when France allies with Russia. War on two fronts would now be a reality.

Britain was isolated for much of the earlier part of this century but as a result of various diplomatic deals with France and events in Marocco (Entente Cordiale for one if you want to look it up), led them into an alliance with France and Russia. All this can be seen as a result of the Trippelalliance made by Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary and helped increase tensions in the already unstable Europe.

I will get back to this but it is also important to mention the sudden rise of nationalism that came in Europe during the 19th century. How that came to be I won't mention because that would be a different post alltogether. An important part of nationalism during this time was not simply making your country better for everyone internaly but also increasing your country's power in comparison to others. The way to do this was colonies. Colonies across the globe would secure raw materials, resources and markets for the industry (remember this was going on at the same time with the industrial revolution), and that defend the state against other countries greed and jealousy. Nationalism also had the need for an enemy. The "Us and them" part. All the things mentioned above led to an armsrace between different major powers as everyone wanted to show their power and dominance.

Now for the more immidiate causes of the war. The Balkan wars led to a less powerfull Ottoman Empire in the mainland Europe and an increasingly stronger Serbia which had ambitions of a common state for Serbians and Slavs. This made Austria-Hungary even more nervous than it already was as they had political entities in the country loyal to the Serbian Cause. Bosnia and Herzegovina which was part of Austria-Hungary was something Serbia wanted for themselves. When Archduke Franz Ferdinand the heir to the throne was shot in Sarajevo (in Bosnia) this was in protest of Austria-Hungary's control of the region. The assassination was supported by nationalistic groups in Serbia. This led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia. When Russia mobilized due to its alliance with Serbia, Germany declared war on Russia, which was allied with France and Britain. Thus the web of alliances came into play. I forgot to mention it but Italy never entered the war on the Central Powers' side becuase they argued that it was a defensive alliance and therefore the were not obliged to help (there were also other reasons for not wanting to help).

In conclusion we can see many different factors for the causes of the war. The war came as a result of a century of complex alliances, rise of nationalism, armsrace as a result of that, changes in the balance of power and the decisions made by individual statesmen. I hope this cleared it up. Long answer I know but you can't really make this short without only mentioning the immidiate causes. I apologize for my english and grammar mistakes.

Some sources aren't in english but they are sources non the less:

Den store Krigen, Sørensen

The versailles settlement, Sharp