January 1st 2020 signalled a new decade and I think for the most of us, new opportunities and excitement for what the year would become. Fast forward 365 days and I think we’d rather go back to 2019.

2020 has without doubt been one of the worst years in modern history, from bush fires to pandemics, wars and political unrest, 2020 truly takes first place. Before this year comes to its well anticipated end, we’d like to recap (briefly) some of the events that have taken place across the globe this year.

Australian Bush Fires

Australia witnessed the worst bushfire season in history, starting in late 2019, over 126,000+ kilometres of land and thousands of buildings were destroyed.

Victoria and New South Wales were the worst affected and the situation was so bad that a state of emergency was declared in the capital city, Canberra.

Rising temperatures contributed by climate change have been blamed for the fires and with temperatures globally expected to increase, could we see further bushfires in 2021.

Covid-19 Pandemic

Easily the biggest global event effecting almost everyone has been the ongoing pandemic caused by the novel Coronavirus (Covid-19).

Traced back to an animal market in Wuhan, China, the virus quickly spread across the world causing nearly every country to take unprecedented action in protecting its citizens and containing the threat of the virus. From national lockdowns lasting months at a time, to border closures and continued travel bans, Covid-19 has cemented its place as the worst event of 2020.

Currently nearly 82,000,000 cases have been reported throughout the globe and the virus has claimed over 1.7 million lives. The worst effected country remains the United States of America but in some good news, several successful vaccines have been fast tracked and global vaccinations have begun.

The Impeachment of Donald Trump

The president of the United States faced an impeachment trial in January on charges that he asked Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. He was ultimately acquitted by the Senate on February 5th 2020.

Only the third president in history to be impeached, perhaps this demonstrated a sign of what was to come in November 2020 election.

Black Lives Matter Movement

After the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others at the hands of police brutality, global protests demanded justice and an end to systematic racism, especially throughout the United States.

The largely peaceful protects have continued throughout 2020, however some moments of violence were captured when Black Lives Matter (BLM) protectors clashed with so call ‘Proud Boys’ (a group linked to white supremacy) in Portland Oregon and other cities.

Donald Trump’s handling of the protests has widely been regarded as a failure, even threatening to deploy the National Guard to break up peaceful campaigning, leading to further violence and looting.

The Death of Kim Jong Un?

One news story you may have forgotten about was the widely circulated rumour that the supreme leader of North Korea, Kim Jon Un, had died. This was after missing several key events in the North Korean calendar, including those related to his grandfather Kim II-sung on April 15th 2020.

However, these rumours were put to rest when the supreme leader emerged 20 days later at a ribbon cutting ceremony, yet South Korean officials claim these images to be false and believe Kim Jong Un to be in a vegetative state.

Beirut Explosion

The capital of Lebanon was rocked when a massive explosion caused by an accidental detonation of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate killed 190 people and injured thousands of others.

The explosion was compared to that of a nuclear bomb and the Lebanon government was forced to resign amid growing public anger.

Armenia and Azerbaijan Clashes

Conflict broke out between the two neighbouring countries over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The Armenians steadily lost territory during the fighting as Azerbaijani forces took over Shusha.

Azerbaijan also admitted to mistakenly shooting down a Russian military helicopter over Armenia, killing two crew members and injuring a third.

It is unclear exactly how many have died. Both sides deny targeting civilians but accuse the other of doing so.

Nagorno-Karabakh's authorities say nearly 1,200 of its defence forces have died in the fighting, and civilians have also been killed or injured.

A peace deal was signed by Russian President, Vladimir Putin, after 6 weeks of fighting.

Joe Biden is elected the next US President

Tuesday November 3rd marked election day for millions of Americans across the United States and for the rest of the world, it became must watch politics.

However, the process of selecting a new president in 2020 hasn’t been quick or easy and rather than an election day, we’ve witness an election week that has dragged into 5 days of 24 hour news cycles and disproportionate projections for each state as various organisations from CNN, Fox News and Decision Desk offered different totals of the electoral college between Joseph Biden for the Democratic Party and Donald Trump for the Republican Party.

The exciting and often anxiety inducing coverage finally concluded around 4pm GMT on November 7th when President-elect Joe Biden emerged victorious as the 46th President of the United States, securing a current total of 306 electoral college votes.

The United Kingdom secures its exit from the European Union

After four long years of negotiations, postponing and a yearlong transitional period, the United Kingdom secured its exit (or Brexit) deal from the European Union (EU).

The over 1000 page document lays out the conditions on trade, movement, fishing and other key areas between the UK and its neighbouring European countries. There had been a lot of scepticism over whether an agreement would be reached in time or whether the UK would to leave without any deal.

The true impact of Brexit will only be felt over the next coming years and it will be an interesting test of whether choosing to leave the EU was the right or wrong decision for the UK.

Final Thoughts

There has been many other events that have defined 2020, from murderous hornets, Californian Wildfires, continued threats of terrorism and further unret in the Middle East just to name a few.

However, from TCGA team we would like to thank you all for your continued support over the last year and we look forward to bringing you new and continued developments concerning global affairs in 2021.

Happy New Year!

2020: A Year We'd Rather Forget