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WORLD 2011
Saturday, December 31, 2011
The year of protests and uprisings September
January AFTER days of clashes in which dozens are killed, and having made empty promises of reforms and elections, former ruler Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali flees to Saudi Arabia. Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi stays on, with
parliamentary speaker Fouad Mebazza as interim president. He is the first leader to fall in the Arab Spring. A new government is elected in October and new president chosen in December. UNSAFE: A protester stands in front of a burning barricade during a demonstration in Cairo. — Reuters photo
PROTESTERS complaining about the power of the financial industry stage noisy demonstrations that slow pedestrian traffic on Wall Street. The protesters settle in Zuccotti Park.
A camp is set up on Sept 17 and becomes the epicentre for the movement, sparking rallies and occupations of public spaces across the United States and elsewhere in the world. The protesters are finally evicted in November.
INDIGNANT:Spain’s ‘indignant’ protesters hold a banner reading ‘we march against the crisis and the capital, to the general strike’ through the streets of Madrid. — AFP photo
May
February EGYPTIAN President Hosni Mubarak steppel down on Feb 11, 2011 after millions of Egyptians took to the streets to demand an end to his 30-year rule. He makes first appearance at a Cairo court on Aug 3 and reappeared in late December charged with conspiring to kill protesters and other crimes. At least 850 people are killed in the uprising. Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi is the head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
that has since ruled Egypt. Elections for a new parliament will proceed into 2012. The uprising against the nearly 42-year rule of Muammar Gaddafi began in February 2011 in Benghazi. Since then the opposition rebels fought city by city with the help of Nato aerial support. Muammar Gaddafi is killed on Oct 20 after being captured in his home town of Sirte. Three days later the NTC declared the liberation of the nation.
SPANISH youth vows on May 20 to continue demonstrating against unemployment and mainstream politics. Dubbed ‘los indignados’ (the indignant), thousands demonstrating against unemployment and deep austerity measures filled the
main squares of Spain’s cities for days, marking a shift after years of patience with an economic slump. In November elections, incumbent Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was defeated by Mariano Rajoy and his centre-right People’s Party. DAY OF ACTION: Occupy Wall street demonstrators protest on the streets of lower Manhattan near the New York Stock Exchange during what organisers called a ‘day of action’ in New York. About 500 Occupy Wall Street protesters marched from a New York park onThursday to the stock exchange for a protest that the movement against economic inequality hoped would attract tens of thousands of people. — Reuters photo
October
MARTYR: A policeman rushes to extinguish Apostolos Polyzonis, a man who set himself alight outside a bank branch in Thessaloniki, northern Greece while protesting against government, banks and political parties. — AFP photo
June
NUMBERED DAYS: Turkish Muslims burn of picture of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Jan 30, 2011 during a protest against his regime in front of the Egyptian consulate in Istanbul. Embattled President Hosni Mubarak called out the army and tasked them specifically with helping police quell deadly protests in which around 50 people had been killed. — AFP photo
March SYRIAN President Bashar alAssad faces growing isolation as the bloodshed from his crackdown on demonstrators seeking his overthrow begins
to alienate even sympathetic Arab neighbours. Thousands of people have been killed in months of repression.
GREECE becomes the country with the lowest credit rating in the world after Standard & Poor’s downgraded it by three notches to CCC from B, saying the agency will consider a likely debt restructuring as a default.
POLICE fi re tear gas at stonethrowing youths in Athens, where thousands of striking state sector workers marched against cuts the government says are needed to save the nation from bankruptcy. Greece’s announcement that it would not meet its 2011 deficit target has put in doubt the viability of a 109 billion euro bailout agreed in July.
If that deal must be renegotiated, European banks that hold Greek debt could suffer a heavy blow. EU officials are scrambling to protect banks from a repeat of the crisis that froze the world financial system in 2008. In November, Papandreou steps down and Lucas Papademos heads a crisis coalition.
Papandreou says two days later he will form a new cabinet the next day and seek a vote of confidence from his Socialist party to see through a harsh austerity bill, the target of major recent protests.
July PROTESTERS, mainly from Bahrain’s Shi’ite majority, took to the streets in February demanding a bigger role for elected representatives and less power for ruling alKhalifa family, who are Sunni Muslims. The protests were followed by a harsh crackdown and two months of martial law. The talks, which ended on
July 24, are designed to propose reform in the kingdom but critics say they would carry little weight because the largest Shi’ite opposition group, Wefaq, walked out of the talks. A report issued in November, said that abuse was systematic and called for a commission including opposition figures to implement reforms.
PROTEST MASCOT: A dog nicknamed Loukanikos or ‘sausage’ runs through tear gas as a protester kicks a tear gas canister in front of the parliament in Athens on December 6, 2011 during a demonstration to commemorate the police killing of a student three years ago which sparked violent riots lasting weeks. — Reuters photo
November ANTI-CAPITALISM protesters inspired by the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement set up camp at the landmark St Paul’s Cathedral in the fi nancial district. Around 200 tents have been pitched close to St Paul’s since protesters were barred from
the nearby London Stock Exchange in October. On Nov 30, public sector workers go on strike in Britain to protest over pension reforms and austerity measures, escalating confrontation with a deficitcutting government.
August
ANTICIPATION: A Libyan anti-government protester with her face painted in the colours of Libya’s old national flag takes part in a gathering in the eastern city of Benghazi on Feb 27, 2011. Libyan protest leaders established a transitional ‘national council’ in cities seized from Muammar Gaddafi, as world leaders called on him to quit and protesters closed in on Tripoli. — AFP photo
April YEMEN’S President Ali Abdullah Saleh agrees to step down in weeks in return for immunity from prosecution after protests against his 33-year old rule began in January. The opposition agrees to the plan. However after several attempts to negotiate his agreeing to a Gulfbrokered plan, he finally steps aside in November. Saleh hands over to his deputy, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who forms a new government with the opposition. New presidential elections will take place in Feb 2012.
MORE than 2,800 people are arrested after a protest over a fatal shooting by police on Aug 4 prompted rioting and looting in the poor London district of Tottenham. The violence spread through London, to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and other English cities. The riots, in which five people were killed, badly damaged Britain’s reputation for stability less than a year before London hosts the 2012 Olympics.
December UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, reports the death toll from nine months of unrest has risen to more than 5,000. In the protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s 11-year rule. Assad faces the most serious challenge to his rule from the turmoil which erupted in the southern city of Deraa in March. A violent security crackdown has failed to halt the unrest — inspired by popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya. Anger over Russia’s Dec 4 parliamentary election draws crowds to Moscow, where they demanded a rerun of a vote Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s foes say was rigged in his ruling United Russia party’s favour. Recent opinion polls show that Putin, president for eight years until 2008 and prime minister since then, remains the most popular politician in Russia. President Dmitry Medvedev calls on Dec 22 for comprehensive reform of Russia’s political system to try to appease protesters who will stage their biggest demonstration on Dec 24. — Reuters
PROTEST:
Occupy Wall street demonstrators protest on the streets of lower Manhattan near the New York Stock Exchange during what organisers called a ‘day of action’ in New York. About 500 Occupy Wall Street protesters marched from a New York park to the stock exchange for a protest that the movement against economic inequality hoped would attract tens of thousands of people. — Reuters photo