The COVID-19 pandemic and the defeat of President Donald Trump in the US presidential election – and his refusal to concede – were undoubtedly the major news events of 2020. Here’s a look at these and other important highlights that shaped the year.

COVID changes the world

The World Health Organisation announced on January 9 that a deadly coronavirus had emerged in a food market in Wuhan, China. In a matter of months, the virus spread around the world, leading to lockdowns, a global recession, a stock market crash, a plunge in oil prices, huge pressure on countries’ healthcare systems, 77 million virus cases and 1.7 million deaths.  Billions had to be pumped into the global economy by governments to save jobs and businesses.

The world had changed: people wore masks, they worked remotely from home, they had to adhere to social distancing;  families could not meet up, and global travel came to a virtual standstill for much of the year.  In Europe, Italy, France, Spain, and Britain were particularly hard hit with a massive amount of COVID-19 cases and deaths.

Unfortunately, there was little global leadership during this once in a century pandemic from the United States, and President Donald Trump’s mismanagement of the outbreak is probably the most catastrophic domestic policy failure of the past 100 years. Instead of working with the international community, Trump withdrew US funding from the WHO because he said it wasn’t tough enough on China.

The European Union, on the whole, acted well during this crisis, putting together a coronavirus financial recovery package worth €750 billion, allocating €500 million towards a COVID-19 vaccine and securing the production of vaccines through Advance Purchase Agreements with vaccine producers in Europe.

How individual countries fared in this pandemic depended largely on the attitude adopted by their leaders.  For example, Angela Merkel’s Germany, Jacinda Ardern’s New Zealand, Tsai Ing-wen’s Taiwan, Katrín Jakobsdóttir’s Iceland, Singapore’s Lee Hsien Loong, and Japan’s Yoshihide Suga all tackled COVID-19 professionally and took decisions based solely on scientific advice. The result was that the pandemic was well managed in these nations.

In contrast, countries governed by leaders who were populist or flirted with populism often fared poorly, in particular Donald Trump’s America and Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil. In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson did not initially give the pandemic the importance it deserved, but he later seemed to have changed his attitude, possibly because he himself had caught COVID-19.

The good news is that a number of COVID-19 vaccines have been developed and approved and vaccinations have already started in many countries, so there is finally light at the end of the tunnel.

One thing is for certain: COVID-19 made us rethink our relationship with the natural world. It made us reflect on the billions of animals killed every year for food, and the so-called ‘wet markets’ that sell live animals which can lead to diseases caused by viruses that cross the species barrier and jump to humans.

Furthermore,  during the pandemic air quality all over the world improved considerably as there was less use of  power plants, cars and industrial plants, and commercial flights were drastically reduced. So there is no doubt we need to redouble our efforts at protecting the environment, especially since   we are already witnessing the effects of climate change.

Trump calls COVID-19 a ‘hoax’

In the US Donald Trump first called the pandemic a “hoax” invented by the Democrats and he certainly did not take COVID-19 seriously. He said normality would return by Easter (last Easter), he initially refused to wear a mask, he supported people protesting in the streets against measures taken by state governors to halt the spread of the virus and he actually suggested that injecting disinfectant could treat COVID-19.

The result of Trump’s folly and incompetence is that the US has a disproportionately high number of COVID-19 figures: 20 million cases and 350,000 deaths so far, and a huge spike in unemployment, factors which undoubtedly led to his defeat in the presidential election.

The US Congress did pass a $2.2 trillion stimulus bill, as well as a second $900 billion COVID relief package, which helped a lot of businesses to remain afloat and supported the unemployed, but the lack of presidential leadership was there for everyone to see. After all, it emerged that in 2018 Trump dismantled a National Security Council directorate at the White House, which was tasked with preparing for when, not if, another pandemic would hit the world.

The defeat of Donald Trump, left, in the US presidential elections, by Joe Biden was without doubt the best news of 2020. Photo: AFPThe defeat of Donald Trump, left, in the US presidential elections, by Joe Biden was without doubt the best news of 2020. Photo: AFP

Joe Biden defeats Donald Trump

In the US presidential election Republican President Donald Trump was defeated by the Democratic Party candidate, former vice president Joe Biden. Biden’s victory gave hope to millions of people not only in the US, but around the world, that America would return to normality, democracy, the rule of law, decency in public life, multilateralism, and global engagement.

In a nutshell, Biden, a Democrat, won the election because he beat Trump in five so-called ‘battleground’ or ‘swing’ states which had voted Republican in 2016, namely Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia. These victories gave him a comfortable majority in the Electoral College, which is what is needed to win the White House. All the other states voted along the same lines as they did four years ago.

Significantly Biden won the highest number of votes ever for a presidential candidate, 81.28 million, and received over seven million votes more than Trump. So, although the election was close in a number of states, there was a huge margin between the candidates in terms of the national popular vote.

The Democrats retained control of the House of Representatives and have 48 seats in the Senate compared to 50 for the Republicans. However, in January a run-off election for Georgia’s two Senate seats will be held and if the Democrats win both elections they will have equal representation with the Republicans. This means that Kamala Harris, who made history by becoming the first female, black and South Asian vice-president, will have a casting vote, effectively giving the Democrats a majority.

As expected, Trump, who was acquitted by the Senate in an impeachment trial in January, remained a liar and a cheat until the very end. He refused to admit his defeat in the presidential election, claiming instead that Biden won only because of massive electoral fraud and illegal voting, despite no evidence of any irregularities. His lawyers filed lawsuits in a number of states, of all which  were thrown out by the courts, including the US Supreme Court.

The damage to American democracy caused by Trump’s refusal to admit his defeat will be long-lasting, and a major challenge to the incoming Biden administration. Most Republican voters still believe Trump won the election, which just shows how fragile US democracy is, and what a dangerous situation the US finds itself in.

Britain leaves the EU

The United Kingdom officially left the European Union on January 31, three and a half years after the Brexit referendum, but was subject to the bloc’s rules and regulations for the rest of the year. Negotiations on a trade deal which enter into force on January 1, 2021, dragged on and were concluded on Christmas Eve. The main stumbling blocks were fishing rights, rules on fair competition and how the rules of the deal will be enforced. The 27 EU member states maintained their unity during the Brexit negotiations and the Brexiteers found out that agreeing to a trade deal with the EU was not so easy after all.

The deal means that there will be no extra tariffs on goods or limits on the amount that can be traded between the UK and the EU, but there will be extra checks at borders, such as safety checks and customs declarations. The agreement excludes services, including finance, which are very important to the UK economy.  UK nationals will now need a visa for stays of longer than 90 days in the EU in a 180-day period, and there will be extra border checks for UK travellers.

EU boats will continue to fish in UK waters for some years to come, but UK fishing boats will get a greater share of the fish from UK waters, 25 per cent, which will be phased in over five and a half years.  After that, there will be annual negotiations to decide how the catch is shared out between the UK and EU. The UK will have the right to completely exclude EU boats after 2026 but the EU could respond with taxes on exports of British fish to the EU.

The UK will no longer be bound by judgements made by the European Court of Justice and will not be a member of Europol – but it will have a presence at its headquarters. And the UK opted to no longer participate in the Erasmus education programme, but students in Northern Ireland will be able to do so, thanks to funding from the Irish government.

Politics in Europe

There were a number of interesting political developments in Europe in 2020. Austria got a coalition government between the the centre-right People’s Party led by Sebastian Kurz and the Green Party led by Werner Kogler. The coalition promised to make Austria climate-neutral by 2040, 10 years earlier than the EU’s goal, and to also impose stricter controls on migration. It marked the first time a Green party and a centre-right party joined in a coalition national government in Europe.

In Ireland the left-wing Sinn Féin party registered a huge increase in support in a general election, winning the most votes, 24.5 per cent, and becoming a major player in Irish politics. The result, however, led to the country’s first ever coalition government between historic rivals Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, which are both centrist parties and which came second and third in terms of the popular vote.

In Germany Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the leader of the centre-right CDU, announced her intention to resign and will not put herself forward to replace Angela Merkel as Chancellor. Kramp-Karrenbauer, who was a protégé of Merkel,  made her announcement after questions were raised about her ability to command authority in the party. A new party leader will be chosen in 2021, and it remains to be seen whether Merkel’s successor will continue with her centrist policies.

There was no populist surge in Italy where Matteo Salvini, the leader of the right-wing League party, failed to win regional elections in Emilia Romagna and Tuscany, two bastions of the centre-left, which he had hoped would turn to the right.  In another development Luigi Di Maio, the leader of Italy's anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, which co-governs the country, resigned but stayed on as Foreign Minister.

At the beginning of the year the Spanish Parliament confirmed Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s minority left-wing coalition government by a razor-thin majority. The alliance between the Socialists and the left-wing Podemos represents the country’s first coalition government since the country’s return to democracy in the 1970s and has so far manged to remain united.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s government resigned and Jean Castex, a top civil servant, replaced Edouard Philippe as prime minister.  The resignation came shortly after Macron's centrist political party En Marche fared poorly in local elections, and  gave the President the chance to reconnect with voters two years before the next presidential election. During the year Macron had to deal with nationwide strikes against his proposed pension reforms – which he watered down, as well as protests against his proposed security law which would make make it more difficult to film police officers, which he promised to review.

In October France was shocked by the brutal murder of  high-school teacher Samuel Paty by a radical Islamist after he showed his class drawings of the Prophet Mohammad during a debate on free speech. Macron promised France would “not cease drawing caricatures”, leading to protests in some parts of the Muslim world and a threat of a boycott of French products in some countries, notably Turkey.

The European Union agreed to a deal that saw Hungary and Poland lift their veto of the bloc’s multi-year budget and Covid-19 recovery package. Budapest and Warsaw had objected to the funds being linked to compliance with the rule of law. Under a compromise brokered by the German EU presidency there is still a link between the two but sanctions cannot be triggered until the European Court of Justice has ruled on the legality of the mechanism, which observers believe could take more than a year to complete.

US kills Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani

The United States killed Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, in a drone strike at Baghdad airport.  The assassination by the Trump administration represented a dangerous escalation of tensions between Washington and Teheran and led to fears of a war in the Gulf region.  The Iranian government then announced it was removing all limits on its enrichment of uranium, thereby moving further away from the 2015 landmark nuclear accord (and which the US had abandoned). Soon after Iran attacked the Irbil and Al Asad US bases in Iraq with ballistic missiles, representing the first direct attack on American forces by Iran. Five days after the killing of Solemani a Ukrainian airliner crashed after taking off from Teheran airport, killing all 176 people on board. Iran later admitted it had mistaken the plane for a missile and shot it down.

Black Lives Matter

The brutal killing of George Floyd, a black man, at the hands of a white policeman in Minneapolis, sparked massive unrest across America and a surge in support for the Black Lives Matter movement. A video of Floyd pleading that he couldn’t breathe as the policeman knelt on his neck went viral and caused outrage around the world. There were further riots after police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, shot and seriously injured another black man, Jacob Blake, many times in the back while responding to what they said was a domestic incident. The shootings highlighted America’s growing problem of police brutality towards members of the black community.

War in Ethiopia

The outbreak of war between the government of Ethiopia and forces in the northern Tigray region was a sad development in a country that was progressing well and carrying out a number of important political reforms.  The conflict started in early November when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (who was given the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for ending a long-standing territorial dispute with neighbouring Eritrea) ordered a military offensive against regional forces in Tigray in response to an attack on a military base housing government troops in the region. Tigray’s dominant political party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front,  was at the centre of power in the region and part of the national governing coalition for almost three decades, but it felt side-lined  by Abiy, who took office in 2018 and pursued reforms, eventually removing key Tigrayan government leaders accused of corruption and repression.

Things got worse when last September Tigray held its regional election, which the central government said was illegal due to coronavirus, and when Abiy suspended funding for and cut ties with Tigray in October. The conflict in Ethiopia risks spiralling into an all-out civil war like the one which overthrew the Communist government in 1991. Unfortunately, the Ethiopian government rejected mediation efforts by the African Union and US and other international mediation attempts were non-existent.

Other conflicts: China India border, Armenia and Azerbaijan

Chinese and Indian troops clashed along part of their 2,000-mile Himalayan border.  The skirmishes erupted in May after India accused Chinese soldiers of advancing beyond the de facto border in the Ladakh region, which borders Tibet. China, on the other hand, accused India of building roads and defensive structures which threaten the status quo in the region, where a bloody war took place in 1962. The fighting was hand to hand, as a 1996 agreement between the two sides prohibits guns and explosives along the disputed stretch of the border in order to deter escalation.

There was also fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, a breakaway region inside Azerbaijan’s borders but run by ethnic Armenians. Forty-four days of fighting ended thanks to a Moscow-brokered peace deal in November, but the Azeris managed to take back control of parts of the region thanks to superior weaponry and the support of Turkey.

China’s passes draconian Hong Kong security law

China passed a wide-ranging new security law for Hong Kong which critics said makes it easier to punish protesters and reduces the city’s autonomy and curtails freedom of expression. Beijing was criticised in Western capitals but little action was taken in response to the new law – with the exception of the UK, which announced it will offer up to three million Hong Kong residents a path to British citizenship. The new law includes making crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces punishable by a maximum sentence of life in prison. It also gives Hong Kong's chief executive the power to appoint judges to hear national security cases, raising fears about judicial autonomy. To make matters worse, Legislative Council elections were postponed, and a number of opposition lawmakers resigned in protest at the expulsion of four fellow pro-democracy legislators that Beijing considered secessionist. The move came after China passed a resolution giving the Hong Kong authorities the power to bypass local courts and summarily remove politicians seen as a threat to security.

Venezuela dictatorship complete

Venezuela’s left-wing authoritarian dictator President Nicolás Maduro completed his control over the country’s political institutions through his party’s ‘victory’ in the country’s legislative elections, which were boycotted by the main opposition parties.  The boycott was led by opposition leader Juan Guaidó who has been in a two-year power struggle with Maduro after declaring himself President in 2019. The National Assembly was the only institution controlled by the opposition but will now be dominated by Maduro's party and allies.  Maduro has a history of undermining the rule of law and eroding democracy. In 2017 he set up a National Constituent Assembly, made up of his supporters, to side-line the opposition-controlled National Assembly and pass laws. In the 2018 presidential election he committed massive electoral fraud and declared himself re-elected. He controls most of the judiciary, the electoral commission, the police and the army, and his dictatorship is now complete.  The inability of the democratic world to bring about an end to this left-wing dictatorship is without doubt one of its greatest failures.

The Kremlin poisons an opponent, again

Russia’s main opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned by a Novichok nerve agent, allegedly on the orders of President Vladimir Putin, according to his close associates and western intelligence agencies. Tests in Germany, France and Sweden established that Navalny was indeed poisoned with a chemical agent from the Novichok group, which is banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997.  The nerve agent was already used against former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, UK, in 2018, leading to the death  of a British citizen, and the UK government had concluded that it was “highly likely” that Russia was responsible for this.  

Navalny’s poisoning further strained relations with Europe and in response the EU imposed sanctions on six senior Russian officials and a chemical research centre. Addressing the European Parliament European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: “To those that advocate closer ties with Russia, I say that the poisoning of Alexei Navalny with an advanced chemical agent is not a one-off. We have seen the pattern in Georgia and Ukraine, Syria, and Salisbury – and in election meddling around the world. This pattern is not changing.”

US President Donald Trump refused to condemn Russia, saying he has not seen proof. Nato, on the other hand, said there is “proof beyond doubt” that Navalny was attacked with a Novichok nerve agent, which was only ever produced in secret Soviet-era facilities.

Thankfully Navalny was airlifted to a Berlin hospital soon after he fell ill and has now recovered.

Russians back possibility of more terms for Putin

Seventy-eight per cent of Russian voters backed constitutional reforms that could keep President Vladimir Putin in power until 2036. The reforms reset Putin’s term limits to zero in 2024, allowing him to serve two more six-year terms, but also transfer power from the presidency to parliament. Opposition figures criticised the vote, saying Putin was aiming to be “president for life”. There was no independent scrutiny of the seven-day vote.

Shortly before Putin proposed the constitutional changes Russia’s government led by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev resigned. Putin appointed Mikhail Mishustin, the head of Russia's tax service, as the new prime minister. 

Lushashenko riggs another election in Belarus

Belarus President Alexander Lushashenko stole yet another presidential election when he claimed to have been re-elected to a sixth term in August. Opposition leaders, including popular presidential candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, fled the country, protesters were brutally attacked by the security forces, thousands of people arrested and tortured and the media attacked. Lukashenko, in power for more than two decades, ignored protesters’ calls for him to resign. The European Union imposed a number of sanctions on officials responsible for the repression as well as prominent businessmen and companies benefiting from and/or supporting the Lukashenko regime. The European Parliament, on the other hand, presented the 2020 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and Veranika Tsapkala on behalf of the democratic opposition in Belarus.

Israel: Unity government collapses, four Arab nations in peace deals

Israel’s unity coalition government collapsed after the two governing parties failed to meet a deadline over state budgets. The country will now hold its fourth election in two years,  in March 2021, 12 months after the last election which led to a government of national unity between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud and Benny Gantz of the centrist Blue and White. The two agreed to rotate as prime minister, with Netanyahu holding office first before a scheduled handover to Gantz in November 2021. In another development, Netanyahu’s trial on charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes opened in May.

Meanwhile, in a major victory for Netanyahu, four Arab states, namely the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan recognised Israel in deals brokered by the US. The Palestinians, however, were critical of the move, as they saw no concessions by Israel towards their aspirations for statehood. However, the UAE said that as part of its deal, Israel promised to suspend its annexation of the West Bank. The move by the UAE and Bahrain to recognise Israel was interpreted as a result of their intense fear of Iran; in Sudan’s case Khartoum was removed from the US’s blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism while Morocco was rewarded by US recognition  of its sovereignty over Western Sahara – a move criticised by many as going against international law.

Kim Jong-un vanishes ..... and appears three weeks later

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un was surprisingly absent at the birthday celebration of North Korea’s founder Kim Il-sung on April 15. Speculation was rife  that Kim might either be dead or undergoing heart surgery due to obesity and excessive smoking. His disappearance sparked discussions about a possible North Korean collapse and the risks of nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands. Three weeks later North Korean state TV showed Kim at a fertiliser plant, with no explanation about his previous absence.

There was absolutely no progress made between the US and North Korea on getting Pyongyang to end its nuclear weapons programme. In fact North Korea ended its moratorium on nuclear and intercontinental missile tests, it introduced new massive intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles during a parade celebrating the anniversary of the ruling Workers’ Party and it blew up its joint liaison office with South Korea – which was opened in its territory in 2018 to help the two Koreas communicate.

Huge explosion rocks Beirut

Over 200 people were killed and 5,000 injured after a huge explosion devastated the port area of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, leaving 300,000 people homeless. The blast, which was felt in Cyprus, was caused by 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored unsafely in a warehouse and was one of the biggest non-nuclear blasts in history – equivalent to between 500-1,100 tonnes of TNT, around 1/20th of the size of the atomic bomb that was used on Hiroshima. Many Lebanese considered the explosion, which cost the economy about €10 billion, as symbolic of years of entrenched corruption and economic mismanagement. The blast led to the resignation of the government of Hassan Diab, a technocrat who had been appointed prime minister in the wake of mass anti-corruption protests.

Wildfires in Australia and US West Coast

Australia faced one of its most devastating wildfire seasons at the beginning of the year which burned a record 47 million acres, displaced thousands of people,  killed at least 34 people and destroyed over 5,900 buildings. Nearly three billion terrestrial vertebrates were affected and some endangered species were believed to be driven to extinction. The cost of the fires was estimated at about €84 billion.

In the US, deadly wildfires erupted in summer along the West Coast from California to Washington state, burning 8.2 million acres of land, displacing hundreds of thousands of people, destroying 10,000 buildings and killing 46 people. The cost of the fires was estimated at €2.2 billion.

In both Australia and the US West Coast climate change contributed to the severity of the wildfires.  US President Donald Trump faced heavy criticism when he dismissed concerns over climate change during a visit to fire-ravaged California.

Farewell to ....

Many prominent global personalities died in 2020 and can’t all be mentioned here but a few should be: Italian football legend Paolo Rossi; Argentinian football legend Diego Armando Maradona; US basketball legend Kobe Bryant;  US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal icon; US civil rights icons Elijah Cummings and John Lewis, both Democratic Congressmen; John Hume, the former leader of Northern Ireland’s Catholic SDLP, who played a pivotal role in forging the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement;  Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, former French president who promoted European integration; Pierre Cardin,  French-Italian fashion designer; John le Carre, acclaimed British spy novelist; Sir Sean Connery, best known for his iconic portrayal of James Bond; Little Richard, self-proclaimed ‘architect’ of rock and roll; and Brent Scowcroft, a former US Air Force General, who served as national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. Bush, and who played a pivotal role in navigating the first Gulf War and the end of the Cold War.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.