Looking back in 2016
By Khazima Munaf
January 2016
In Taiwan's presidential elections, Democratic Progressive Party chairwoman and nominee Tsai Ing-wen comes in first with 56.1% of the vote, becoming the first woman president of Taiwan.
Iran's sanctions were lifted by the U.S. and European nations in Jan 2016. The longstanding sanctions, both financial and oil, were lifted after inspections proved that Iran has dismantled the weapons as agreed upon in the nuclear deal. Around $100 billion of Iran's assets were also released after the inspections by international representatives.
February 2016
According to a U.S. official at the Pentagon, Chinahas deployed missiles to a disputed island in the South China Sea. News of the deployment immediately increases tension in the region because Vietnam, the Philippines, and other countries have also claimed the island. Leaders of those countries also express concern over China's recent efforts to create artificial islands in the same area.
March 2016
President Obama made a historic trip to Cuba this week as the first sitting US president to visit the Communist ruled island since Calvin Coolidge did in 1928.
On 27 March 2016, Easter Sunday, at least 75 people were killed and over 340 injured in a suicide bombing that hit the main entrance of Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, one of the largest parks in Lahore, Pakistan.The attack targeted Christians who were celebrating Easter. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a group affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2016
The Panama Papers are 11.5 million leaked documents that detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities.While offshore business entities are legal, reporters found that some of its shell corporations were used for illegal purposes, including fraud, kleptocracy, tax evasion, and evading international sanctions.
A Syrian hospital backed by Médecins Sans Frontières and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was destroyed in an airstrike in Aleppo, killing patients and doctors including one of the last paediatricians remaining in the rebel-held part of the city.
May 2016
NASA's Kepler mission has verified 1,284 new planets – the single largest finding of planets to date. Analysis was performed on the Kepler space telescope’s July 2015 planet candidate catalog, which identified 4,302 potential planets. For 1,284 of the candidates, the probability of being a planet is greater than 99 percent – the minimum required to earn the status of “planet.”
June 2016
Following a referendum held on 23 June 2016 in which 52% of votes were cast in favour of leaving the EU, the UK government intends to invoke Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, the formal procedure for withdrawing, by the end of March 2017. This, within the treaty terms, would put the UK on a course to leave the EU by March 2019.
A terrorist attack, consisting of shootings and suicide bombings, occurred on 28 June 2016 at Atatürk Airport in Istanbul, Turkey and a French police commander and his partner were stabbed to death at their home west of Paris by a man claiming allegiance to so-called Islamic State (IS). Their three-year-old survived. These attacks sent the western world in shock and made them miserable.
July 2016
Turkey experiences an attempted coup by a group of soldiers within the country's military. Gunfire and explosions were seen throughout two majors cities of Turkey: Istanbul and Ankara, as the government, the military faction, and the people of Turkey clashed in the streets. Around 60 people are reportedly dead and 300 have so far been arrested for their participation in the coup.
On July 18, a 17-year-old Afghan boy attacks passengers on a regional train in southern Germany. On July 22, a German-Iranian gunman at a McDonald's across the street from a shopping mall in Munich fatally shoots nine people and wounds 16 others before killing himself. A 21-year-old Syrian refugee in Germany attacks and kills a pregnant women using a machete on July 24, 2016. The refugee then turns on other civilians and the police, chasing a police car with the machete as well. Also on July 24, a 27-year-old Syrian refugee sets off a bomb in Ansbach, Germany outside a music festival after he is denied entry, injuring 15 and killing himself.
August 2016
For the first time since a cholera epidemic believed to be imported by United Nations peacekeepers began killing thousands of Haitians nearly six years ago, the office of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has acknowledged that the United Nations played a role in the initial outbreak and that a “significant new set of U.N. actions” will be needed to respond to the crisis.
At least 11 people have been killed and 19 injured in an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition on a Yemeni hospital supported by Médecins Sans Frontières as the conflict escalates following the collapse of peace talks. The strike on Monday, in which a member of MSF staff died, was the latest in an increasing number of attacks targeting places commonly used by civilians, including hospitals where MSF doctors and nurses work. It followed similar airstrikes on a food factory and a school.
A suicide bomb attack killed at least 70 people at a hospital in Quetta in south-west Pakistan. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar carried out the earlier attack on Mr Kasi, who was president of the Balochistan Bar Association and had been shot while on his way from his home to the main court complex in Quetta.
September 2016
On Friday, September 9, 2016, North Korea tested a nuclear warhead, proving that the country successfully built stronger and lighter nuclear weapons with a higher impact rate. The test took place in Pyongyang and is the site's fifth atomic test in recent history. The president of South Korea said that the testing produced the largest explosive yield ever, calling the testing "fanatic recklessness" after it caused unusual seismic activity in the area. These advances in North Korea's ability to produce nuclear weapons flies in the face of their existing international sanctions.
On September 6, 2016, in a besieged neighborhood in Aleppo, Syria, the Syrian government was suspected of dropping chlorine bombs on the residential neighborhood of Sukkari. More than 100 were hospitalized for oxygen treatments.
October 2016
On Oct. 24, 2016, three gunmen stormed into a police training camp dormitory in the southwestern city of Quetta, Pakistan. The gunmen opened fire, killing at least 61 and injuring over 100 unarmed cadets. Then the gunmen set off explosive vests, destroying the building. The next day, ISIS took responsibility for the attack, announcing it via the Amaq news agency, posting a picture of the three assailants. However, a Pakistani security official states that the Pakistani extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi was responsible.
On Oct. 29, 2016, scandal in South Korea erupted that a woman named Choi Soon-sil had been exerting influence over the South Korean President Park Geun-hye. Ms. Choi was apparently involved in government business, including influence over policies, without having government clearance. She is also the daughter of religious cult leader, Choi Tae-min, who was President Park's mentor. The people of South Korea have taken to the streets, asking for President Park's resignation from office.
November 2016
In early November, citizens of India learned, with only a few hours’ notice, that their 500 and 1,000-rupee notes were no longer legal tender. Lines formed at banks, with people waiting for days, only to find the bank ran out of smaller bills. Those without bank accounts had no way to make routine transactions. New bills intended to replace the old ones were scarce. The results spread through the economy like wildfire. Merchants lost sales because customers couldn’t pay. It’s the latest step in Prime Minister Modi’s war on corruption and tax evasion, much of it conducted in cash. Analysts think the effects will last into 2018.
December 2016
The UN Security Council has voted in favour of a resolution demanding the halt of settlement activity by Israel on occupied Palestinian territory with the United States notably abstaining. The United States' abstention was the biggest rebuke in recent history to long-standing ally Israel, allowing the Security Council to condemn its settlements and continuing construction in Palestinian territory as a "flagrant violation" of international law. The resolution said Israel's settlements on Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, have "no legal validity." It demanded a halt to "all Israeli settlement activities", saying this "is essential for salvaging the two-state solution".
Following six weeks of street protests and an approval rating that plunged to just 4%, South Korean President Park Geun-hye was impeached Friday by the nation’s National Assembly, signaling an ignominious end to a term that had become mired in a corruption scandal.
Pakistan International Airlines' (PIA) PK 661 went down on a domestic flight from the city of Chitral to the capital Islamabad on Wednesday.All 48 people on board died. The aircraft had undergone regular maintenance and had in October passed an "A-check" certification, conducted after every 500 hours of flight operations.
