Category: Weekly Summaries

A new post every weekend to sum up that week’s most important events in a few sentences.

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Weekly Summaries

3rd of January – 9th of January

Situation in Sudan

Last week, Sudan’s military and security forces re-gained complete control over the country. The military leader promised to form “an independent government,” after the civilian prime minister Abdalla Hamdok left the country last Sunday, leaving the country in chaos. Protests were met with security forces, especially in the capital, Khartoum. According to the New York Times, at least 57 people died.

Other News

  • There was an assasination attempt on Haiti’s President over the weekend, which he survived
  • Turkey’s year-on-year inflation reached 36% in December, a 19-year high
  • Apple’s value as a company has tripled since 2018 when it recently became the first company to become a $3 trillion company
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Weekly Summaries

27th of December 2021 – 3rd of January 2022

Election results in Iraq certified by court

The parliamentary vote actually already took place in October but this past week the court certified the results, although voter turnout was extremely low (only 41%). This means that Muqtada al-Sadr is now set to lead Iraq. His bloc, the Sadrist Bloc, was able to win 20 additional seats in Parliament, consolidating its position of being the largest bloc even further, which will be of great importance when he chooses the next prime minister.

Floods in Brazil

This past week floods in Brazil devastated entire parts of the country. More than 50,000 people had to flee their homes and at least 20 people were killed by the floods drowning the northeastern part of the country. The rain is especially problematic because northeastern Brazil has suffered from extreme droughts for the past 5 years and the heaviest rain recorded in the region over the past three decades has caused dams to collapse, aggravating the situation even further.

Other News

  • The super typhoon Rai of the Philippines has now killed almost 400 people and injured more than a thousand. Nearly 100 people are still missing while others are stuck in evacuation centers.
  • Somalia’s president suspended the country’s prime minister last week because of corruption investigations
  • Ashraf Ghani, the former president of Afghanistan, gave his first interview with the BBC after fleeing Afghanistan
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Weekly Summaries

13th – 19th of December

Drastic Changes for the E.U.

Last week, the E.U. proposed some very drastic changes, which involve taking away the unfettered movement of people between E.U. countries. This is a hallmark sign of the E.U., but it could become a distant memory if both all national government and the E.U. Parliament approve of the change. If this would be the case, member countries could re-introduce border checks as frequently as they wish. The European Commission justified the proposal by stating that it would “help member countries better respond to troubles stemming from migration and the pandemic,” according to the New York Times.

Other News

  • Storms across 6 U.S. states killed at least 90 people. One of the tornadoes will become the “longest tornado in U.S.,” according to Kentucky’s governor.
  • The first official visit by an Israeli leader to the UAE took place on Tuesday the 14th of December. Israel’s prime minister Naftali Bennett met with the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed.
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Weekly Summaries

29th of November – 5th of December

Turkish Lira further loses value

After the Lira crashed last week, protests broke out across Turkey. The crash comes after months of worsening economic problems that already caused the currency to lose more than 45 percent of its value from the start of 2021. Last week alone, the currency devalued by around 20 percent. The police have responded by detaining protestors: last Wednesday the police detained at least 70 people in districts of Istanbul who were protesting the “government’s management of the economy,” according to the New York Times.

American delegates to boycott 2022 Winter Olympics

This weekend the Biden administration announced that no American delegates would be attending the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. American athletes, however, are not affected by the boycott and will be allowed to compete in the Olympics. Since the announcement, New Zealand and Australia have joined the U.S. in the diplomatic boycott.

Other News

  • Four students died at the most recent school shooting at a high school in Michigan, United States. The suspect is a 15-year old who now faces murder and terrorirsm charges
  • Austria’s former chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, who is currently under investigation for accusations that include corruption, announced last week that he was quitting politics
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Weekly Summaries

22nd of November – 28th of November

Germany’s new government

Two months after elections took place at the end of September, the German parties Social Democrats, Greens, and Free Democrats announced last week that they have concluded their coalition talks. The leader of the Social Democrats party, Olaf Scholz, is expected to take over as chancellor from Angela Merkel. This means that Germany may finally have a new government. Some policies included in the new deal are raising the minimum wage to 12€, building 400,000 new apartments to fight the housing crisis, legalizing the sale of cannabis, and new plans to phase out the use of coal by 2030.

Other News

  • To help battle the skyrocketing oil prices worldwide, Britain, the U.S., China, India, Japan, and Korea have decided to release tens of millions of barrels of crude oil from their storage, according to the New York Times
  • A bus caught fire and crashed in Bulgaria, killing at least 45 people
  • A new variant of COVID-19 called Omicron that was first detected in South Africa has started to spread
  • 52 people were killed due to a gas buildup and explosion in a Siberian coal mine last week
  • There were clashes between the police and demonstrators in Honiara, the capital city of the Solomon Islands. The protestors demanded that the prime minister resign.
  • The cyberwar between Iran and Israel has reached new heights
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Weekly Summaries

15th of November – 22nd of November

Tensions at the Poland-Belarus border

Thousands of migrants were trapped at the border between Belarus and Poland for weeks. Poland, a member of the European Union, refused to open the border. Now, an increasing number of migrants have decided to seek asylum in Belarus instead. This could cause many problems for Belarus, a country that has few jobs and other opportunities. Towards the end of the week, Belarusian authorities then cleared the camps at the border and moved the migrants to a warehouse instead. The question of what will happen to the migrants now remains unanswered.

Other News

  • Sudan’s prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, was reinstated on Sunday after being in house arrest for four weeks
  • A new Portuguese law is considered revolutionary in its efforts to regulate remote work conditions. The law effectively prevents employers from contacting their employees outside of working hours and from monitoring their work.
  • President Biden of the U.S. and President Xi of China met virtually in a three-hour long summit to keep “communication lines open”
  • Germany “suspended approval of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline,” according to the New York Times. The move cause gas prices in Europe to rapidly increase
  • An explosion in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, killed at least three civilians. The explosion was later described as an “extremist attack” with three suicide bombers also dying. 
  • A self-portrait of Frida Kahlo sold for $34.9 million last week, setting a new record for the most expensive artwork by a Latin American artist at the auction Sotheby’s
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Weekly Summaries

8th of November – 14th of November

Tensions at the Poland-Belarus Border

Poland has stationed thousands of troops along its border with Belarus where migrants from Middle Eastern countries have set up camp, hoping to enter the European Union. This situation can be seen as a confrontation between Belarus and the E.U., of which Poland is a member. Politicians from E.U. member countries have accused President Lukashenko, Belarus’ leader, of “intentionally trying to create a new migrant crisis in Europe,” according to the New York Times. The E.U. imposed sanctions on Belarus after President Lukashenko’s victory in the elections of August 2020.

Other News

  • After Brexit, British companies have found themselves caught in a tangled web of restrictions and financial obstacles if they want to do business in E.U. countries. The country Estonia saw an opportunity and is now welcoming British companies who want to escape such troubles.
  • The top general of Sudan’s army appointed himself as the “head of a new ruling body” after last month’s coup, according to the New York Times
  • Japan’s economy contracted again in the third quarter of the year
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Weekly Summaries

1st of November – 7th of November

Elections in Japan

The governing Liberal Democrats won the elections, but it was closer than usual. The new prime minister, Fumio Kishida, was chosen by his party, the Liberal Democrats, only last month but was still able to lead them to a victory. The other candidate for the representative of the Liberal Democrats was Sanae Takaichi, who would have become Japan’s first female leader. In the end, the Liberal Democrats won 261 seats, easily making the 233 seats necessary to have a majority, but lost 23 seats compared to the 2017 elections. Interestingly, the Liberal Democrats’ main opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party, also lost seats, according to the New York Times. Prime minister Kishida is a former foreign minister but faces some charisma in the issues and is in fact often said to be “boring” by the Japanese press.

Other News

  • In pro-democracy protests after the coup in Sudan last week, three people were killed and more than 100 were injured.
  • 4 countries, the U.A.E., Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait called back their diplomats from Lebanon’s capital city, Beirut. The move comes after Lebanon’s information minister referred to the Yemen war as a “Saudi and Emirati aggression,” according to the New York Times.
  • The chief executive of the British bank Barclays stepped down after there was an inquiry by regulators into his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
  • A building collapsed at a construction site in Lagos, Nigeria, killing at least four people and trapping more than 100.
  • In Virginia, USA, a Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, was elected last week. He is the first Republican governor to be elected in Virginia in more than a decade.
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Weekly Summaries

25th of October – 31st of October

Coup in Sudan

Last Monday, the top generals of Sudan seized power from the government in a coup. The prime minister and other civilian leaders, which had previously shared power with the military under a tense agreement, were arrested. The military proceeded to impose a state of emergency, opening fire on protestors. President Biden condemned the coup and offered economic assistance worth $700 million in the hopes of aiding the protests for democracy.

G20 Summit in Glasgow

Presidents and Prime Ministers from around the world gathered in Glasgow, Scotland this past week for the 12-day long global warming conference hosted by the U.N. to discuss global climate policies. How successful the summit will be is very uncertain as many countries are currently more focused on battling COVID and getting their economies back on track after lockdown.

Other News

  • A very severe fuel shortage is pushing Haiti, a country already struggling, to the brink of collapse
  • Facebook changed its name to Meta as part of its rebranding scheme
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Weekly Summaries

11th of October – 17th of October

Nobel Prize in Economics

The 2021 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to three U.S.-based economists who work with real-life experiments. David Card from the University of California, Berkeley, specializes in studying “unintended experiments to examine economic questions.” An example of such an experiment is whether raising the minimum wage causes people to lose their jobs. Joshua D. Angrist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Guido W. Imbens from Stanford University won the prize for their joint work on developing research tools that economists utilize to test major theories using real-life situations. An example of this could be whether additional education has an impact on the amount a person earns. Click here to watch a video of the three winners

Other News

  • 32 countries joined the U.S. in a deal aiming to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030 that was developed by the E.U.
  • A trial in Burkina Faso hopes to finally establish who killed Thomas Sankara, the former president, more than 30 years after his death
  • In a pledge, the E.U. decided to give 1 billion Euros (around 1.15 billion US$) in aid to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and neighboring countries
  • A man killed 5 people using a bow and arrow in Kongsberg, which is just outside of Oslo, Norway. The police announced that the suspect is now undergoing psychiatric evaluation