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2020 has been a year of humanitarian crises

Friday, 01 January 2021 3:19 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 01 January 2021 3:32 PM ]

Bianca Rahimi

Press TV, London

The year 2020 has been a harrowing year, defined by death tolls, not just in war torn countries but virtually everywhere else as well. A few months into the year, the World Health Organization made an announcement.

To date there have been more than 83-million recorded Covid-19 cases worldwide, of which more than one million-800-thousand have died. The fight against Covid-19 is ongoing but with a series of vaccines hitting the market there is light at the end of the tunnel.

But certain countries have snapped up the lion’s share of vaccines available, leaving poor countries and those impoverished by western sanctions behind. Vaccines are currently being administered in European states, the US, Canada, and most notably Israel, where the Palestinians have been denied access.

To add insult to injury some Arab nations have normalized ties with Israel in recent months, namely Morocco the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan. The deals were all brokered with varying degrees of pressure by the United States.

The year 2020 also brought with it a new US president. Joe Biden will take over the White House on January 20th despite accusations of electoral fraud. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s administration is scrambling to make good on its promises to Israel before then.

At the start of 2020 Trump authorized the assassination of Iran’s top General Qassem Soleimani a provocation the Leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei vowed to respond to, at a time and place of Iran's choosing.

As 2020 came to a close the Israeli spy agency Mossad assassinated top Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, in what some see as a last ditch attempt at provoking Iran. Nations around the world are now waiting to see how the political climate will change in 2021 under Biden’s presidency, and especially if Washington will re-enter the JCPOA.

And as 2020 came to a close, a Brexit agreement was finally signed to finalize the UK’s divorce from the European Union - big news in the Western world, but hardly poignant in many other parts of the globe where hunger and wars persist, fueled by western countries and their arms sales to despotic regimes.

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