Syria very much dominated the headlines this year and contrary to expectations the Bashar al-Assad regime did not collapse.
Assad’s brutal use of chemical weapons on his own civilian population nearly led to US airstrikes; instead, an agreement was reached between Washington and Moscow for Syria’s chemical weapons to be surrendered.
Sadly there was no sign of this terrible war ending, the moderate rebel forces were sidelined by the jihadists, the West was clueless at how to proceed and Assad survived through sheer brutality and the disgraceful unconditional support of Russia, China and Iran.
The latest UN figures show that there are 6.5 million refugees displaced inside Syria, while another 2.3 million refugees have fled to other countries. At least 100,000 people, mostly civilians, have so far died in this conflict, which has now spread to Lebanon, where clashes between Sunnis and Shi’ities have taken place.
Pope Benedict shook the Catholic Church by becoming the first Pope in 600 years to resign. His successor, Pope Francis, made history by becoming the first Pope from Latin America.
The Argentine-born Pope created a mini-revolution within the Church by cutting down on protocol, stressing the need for the Church to look after the poor, reforming the Vatican, decentralising the Church, reassessing its priorities, making it less judgemental and telling priests not to deliver long, boring sermons.
There was good news coming out of Iran with the surprise June election of the moderate Hassan Rohani as the country’s President. There was even better news last month when Iran and world powers agreed to a historic interim nuclear accord.
Iran agreed to cap its uranium enrichment level to a maximum of five per cent, to ‘neutralise’ its stockpile of 20 per cent enriched uranium and to accept increased visits to its nuclear plants by UN inspectors.
In return, there will be no new nuclear-related sanctions for six months if Iran sticks to the accord and Teheran will get some sanctions relief. Significantly, the US and Iranian presidents spoke for the first time since 1979. Iran and the major powers agreed to try to sign a formal treaty within six months of the Geneva pact.
In the US, the reasonably good performance of the American economy as well as deals over Iran’s nuclear programme and Syria’s chemical weapons were good news for President Barack Obama.
However, the absence of an agreement in Congress on immigration and gun control, the shutdown of the federal government due to the collapse of Budget talks, the NSA leaks by Edward Snowden, the massive technical problems with Obama’s healthcare.gov website and Washington’s inability to stabilise the situation in Syria made it a difficult year for Obama.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel became only the third German politician to win a third term as Chancellor. Her Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union secured its best result in over 20 years and was just five seats short of an absolute majority.
Merkel’s Liberal FDP partners, however, were eliminated from Parliament after failing to secure the five per cent threshold and she formed a grand coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats. In Austria, a similar grand coalition was re-elected, but the eurosceptic parties gained ground, raising eyebrows in Brussels.
In the UK, a number of international forecasts of economic growth were revised upwards after encouraging economic results, and the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition said the country’s tough austerity measures were paying off.
September 18, 2014 was chosen as the date for the referendum on Scottish independence and opinion polls showed that a majority of Scots would vote against leaving the UK.
Prime Minister David Cameron promised an in/out referendum if the Conservatives win the next election. He said he wanted to renegotiate the UK’s relationship with the EU and then give people a choice between staying in under new terms or leaving the bloc. The move was criticised by Cameron’s Liberal Democrat allies, who said such a move would cause uncertainty, and Labour, who accused Cameron of running scared of the eurosceptic UKIP. France and Germany both warned the UK could not “cherry pick” EU membership.
There was good news from Iran with the election of the moderate Hassan Rohani. There was even better news when Iran and world powers agreed to an interim nuclear accord
French President François Hollande faced mass opposition and protests over his decision to allow same-sex adoptions and continued to be criticised over the poor state of the economy.
However, he was praised, both at home and abroad, for his interventionist foreign policy. Hollande sent troops to Mali to oust Islamist militants, who nearly took control of the whole country, as well as to the Central African Republic to try and restore stability after rebels ousted the central government.
Italy’s February election produced the worst possible outcome: no outright winner. While the centre-left got a parliamentary majority in the Lower House, no political bloc acquired a majority in the Senate.
Significantly, it was the anti-establishment comedian Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement which stole the show – it won a quarter of the national vote.
Ending a two-month political stalemate, Enrico Letta (a former Christian Democrat) from the centre-left Democratic Party formed a rare coalition government with Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right People of Liberty Party.
In November, Berlusconi was expelled from the Senate after being convicted of tax fraud; he had earlier withdrawn his support for Letta’s government but did not manage to bring it down as around 30 centre-right dissidents, including his one-time heir apparent, Deputy Prime Minister Angelino Alfano, remained loyal to the government.
Berlusconi continued to lead his party, which reverted back to its original name, Forza Italia, from outside Parliament, and although he has lost much of his power, remained a force to be reckoned with.
The eurozone exited its longest ever recession, raising hope that the bloc’s recovery, however fragile, was in sight. Spain’s economy grew by 0.1 per cent in the third quarter, ending more than two years of recession, but unemployment remained extremely high at 27 per cent. Greece predicted it will emerge from its six-year long recession in 2014, a sign it may be finally recovering from its debt crisis.
Cyprus became the fourth eurozone country to get a bailout and Ireland became the first one to exit its bailout programme, proving that austerity measures, although tough, do pay off. Croatia became the latest country to join the EU.
In the US, Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee and a former National Security Agency contractor, caused uproar when he leaked classified documents to the press highlighting the activities of the NSA, which included spying on 35 world leaders, some of them America’s close allies. The most serious claim was that the NSA hacked Angela Merkel’s phone; this overshadowed an EU summit in October and caused some friction with Washington. Snowden, who was accused of putting America’s security at risk, was granted asylum in Russia
In Egypt Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi proved to be a hopeless and divisive leader. The country was rocked by massive anti-Morsi protests, which led to a military takeover and the overthrow of the President. Many of the Brotherhood leaders, including Morsi, were imprisoned and are facing trial on various charges. The Muslim Brotherhood was banned and the government has now officially designated it a terrorist organisation, a very risky and stupid move indeed. A new draft constitution, which strengthens the role of the army, will be put to a referendum next month.
Libya remained a very unstable country and the government failed to disarm the various militias which control vast areas of the country. The kidnapping of the country’s Prime Minister for a few hours by one such militia group highlighted the fragile situation there. Sixty per cent of Libya’s oil facilities were closed, costing the economy up to $130 million a day in lost revenue.
In Turkey, a protest against the development of a park in Istanbul turned into massive nationwide demonstrations against the increasingly authoritarian nature of Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan’s government. There was international criticism of the police response to the protests, including from the EU and US.
Other mass protests took place in Brazil in response to an increase in bus fares; Ukraine in response to the government not signing a trade agreement with the EU (probably due to pressure by Russia); and Thailand, where protesters demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
Pakistan’s election marked the country’s first civilian transition of power after five years in office. US drone strikes against al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in the country continued to be a source of friction between Washington and Islamabad.
A CIA drone strike killed Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader the Pakistani Taliban. Pakistan continued to be rocked by sectarian violence, as did Iraq, where, sadly, over 8,000 people were killed – the worst year for killings since 2008. In Afghanistan, the handover of security from Nato to Afghan forces was completed in June; the security situation, however, remained very fragile and the Taleban is far from defeated.
In the Middle East, US Secretary of State John Kerry managed to kickstart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks which resumed in July but no progress was made since then.
The major obstacle to an agreement remained Israel’s continued expansion of illegal settlements. Critics believe Israel wants to annex vast areas of the West Bank. Earlier in the year, Benyamin Natanyahu was re-elected Prime Minister; his more centrist-oriented coalition did not prove to be more flexible in peace talks with the Palestinians.
Sadly, there were a number of al-Qaeda and Islamist-linked acts of terrorism throughout the year. A gas plant in Algeria was seized and 800 hostages taken – when the complex was stormed, 39 foreign workers were killed in the operation; Somali al-Shabab gunmen stormed a shopping mall in Nairobi, killing 72 people in a four-day siege; two Chechen brothers bombed the Boston marathon, killing three people; and in London, two British Islamists of Nigerian origin ran over an off-duty soldier and tried to decapitate him.
In Nigeria, the Boko Haram Islamic jihadist organisation, which wants to establish a pure Islamic State, continued to attack Christian and government targets, while the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo signed a peace deal with the M23 rebel movement its forces defeated last month.
International efforts intensified to end the bloodshed in South Sudan, where thousands of people are believed to have died as a result of ethnic divisions. The UN Security Council doubled the number of peacekeepers to 12,500 in the world’s newest state.
China’s new leadership under President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li Keqiang introduced a number of economic reforms, including more market pricing, as well as a relaxation of the country’s one-child policy.
China also adopted a more aggressive security policy by imposing an air defence zone over an area of the East China Sea, which includes a number of islands claimed by Japan, leading to friction with Tokyo. Both the US and Japan ignored Beijing’s demand that it should be informed about flight plans by sending aircraft into the zone.
North Korea continued to cause regional instability and threaten its neighbours. Kim Jong-Un, the country’s 29-year-old dictator, spent the year consolidating power. In February, Pyongyang tested an underground nuclear device, the third such test in seven years. A month later, it said it had entered a “state of war” with South Korea and put its missile units on standby to attack US military bases in South Korea and the Pacific.
Earlier this month, Kin Kong-Un had his own uncle, Jang Song-Thaek, who was married to his father’s sister, executed for ‘plotting against the state’. In a rare development, North Korea actually officially announced the execution, calling Jang “worse than a dog” and “scum” and even published a photograph of the elderly Jang being led away under arrest from a politburo meeting and one of him after being sentenced to death by a ‘court’.
Meanwhile, reports continued to emerge about a vast network of Nazi-like concentration camps in North Korea, where hundreds of thousands of political prisoners are tortured and killed every day and kept in barbaric conditions, confirming beyond any doubt that that this regime is the worst one on the planet.
Australia went through three prime ministers in one year. Labour’s Julia Gillard was ousted by Kevin Rudd, whom she had deposed in 2010. Rudd was then defeated in a national election three months later by conservative leader Tony Abbott, who promised to restore political stability, cut taxes and crack down on asylum seekers arriving by boat.
Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines killed at least 6,000 people, left 4.4 million people homeless and inflicted $12.9 billion in damage.
In Bangladesh, a clothes factory collapsed, killing 1,100 workers; it was South Asia’s worst industrial disaster in 30 years.
Socialist Michelle Bachelet became Chile’s President again, her first term having ended in 2010, and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and former South African President Nelson Mandela died in 2013. Thatcher was a political giant who radically restructured the UK economy and helped defeat communism. Mandela was a political icon who spent 27 years in prison for opposing apartheid and who brought his country together through reconciliation, lack of bitterness and forgiveness.
Other notable deaths in 2013 included those of Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela, whose successor Nicolas Maduro has unfortunately carried on with the same misguided economic policies, former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, former Belgian Prime Minster (and head of the European People’s Party) Wilfried Martens, Mikhail Kalashnikov, creator of the famous AK-47 assault rifle, actors James Gandolfini (The Sopranos) and Peter O’Toole, British journalist and broadcaster David Frost and Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap.