Check out ten key events that marked 2023, from the war between Hamas and Israel to the Bolsonarist attack on the TriPower headquarters in Brasília.
IsraelHamas war
On October 7, Hamas commandos entered southern Israel from the Gaza Strip and carried out a massacre in border towns and an openair music festival.
According to the latest official figures, 1,140 people, most of them civilians of all ages, died on the Israeli side in this attack of unprecedented scale since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, according to an investigation into allegations of rape and mutilation of women.
The Islamist militiamen also kidnapped 250 people, including dozens of children and the elderly, who were taken to Gaza.
Determined to “destroy Hamas,” an organization considered “terrorist” by Israel, the United States and the European Union, the Israeli army is responding with largescale bombings in the Gaza Strip and ordering civilians to the south of the territory to flee. On October 27, his troops began a ground operation in northern Gaza.
The intensity of the bombings and the extent of the destruction are sparking international criticism and concern about Gaza's civilian population, which is also deprived of water, electricity, food and medicine due to the total siege imposed by Israel.
According to the health ministry of Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territory, the Israeli offensive in Gaza left more than 19,000 dead in 74 days of conflict.
According to the United Nations, the attacks forced the displacement of 1.7 million of Gaza's 2.4 million residents.
Humanitarian aid was increased during a sevenday ceasefire that came into force on November 24 but remained inadequate, according to UN agencies.
The agreement allowed for the release of 105 hostages held by Hamas, including 80 Israelis or dual citizens, in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners. According to Israeli authorities, 129 hostages brought to Gaza on October 7 are still being held in the territory. Authorities fear the deaths of almost 20 people.
Lula's return
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva returned to power on January 1, 2023, promising to bring “Brazil back” to the international stage and unite the more than 200 million Brazilians in his third term as president after defeating Jair Bolsonaro (2019). 2022) had defeated the polls.
But the task of “rebuilding” the country after four years of institutional crises and environmental setbacks was quickly undermined on January 8, when thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed the Palácio do Planalto, the National Congress and the seat of the Federal Supreme Court , destroyed furniture and works of art and called in vain for military intervention to remove Lula from office.
The Supreme Court responded decisively to the unrest, as a result of which around 100 of the more than a thousand people arrested are still in prison.
The attempted coup was directed against Bolsonaro, who was in the United States on the day of the attacks. The former president, who without evidence questioned the transparency of the electoral process in which he lost to Lula, is being investigated by the courts as the alleged instigator of the crimes.
In June, Bolsonaro received an administrative conviction for abuse of political power, barring him from running in elections for eight years, meaning he will automatically be eliminated from the next presidential election in 2026.
Ukraine's difficult counteroffensive
In January, the Russian army, reinforced by 300,000 reservists and supported by the Wagner Group paramilitaries, attacked, particularly in the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine.
In May, Moscow demanded the capture of the city of Bakhmut, at the end of the longest and bloodiest battle since the Russian invasion began on February 24, 2022.
In early June, Kiev launched a counteroffensive longawaited by its Western allies to reclaim the territories occupied by Moscow, but encountered solid Russian defenses, causing disappointment among Western powers allied with Ukraine.
Despite billions of dollars in Western military aid, the Ukrainian army has only managed to recapture a few cities in the south and east. In November, the country announced that the Russians had withdrawn several kilometers along the left bank of the Dnieper, in the southern Kherson region.
In Russia, fighters from the Wagner Group rebelled on June 24 and marched towards Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned the “treason” of paramilitary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who ordered his men to return to their bases.
Two months later, Prigozhin died in a plane crash, which still raises questions. Western countries and Ukraine suspect Kremlin involvement.
The conflict between Hamas and Israel has raised fears in Ukraine that its allies would cut military and financial aid to Kiev. In the United States, the White House warned in December that it only had the funds for another aid package for Ukraine because Congress blocked sending more aid.
European Union (EU) leaders agreed at a summit in midDecember to begin formal negotiations on Ukraine's membership of the bloc, but were unable to reach consensus on providing more resources to the country due to Hungary's veto.
Javier Milei is sworn in as President of Argentina
The ultraliberal economist Javier Milei, 53, takes over the presidency of Argentina on December 10th after handily defeating the centrist Peronist Sergio Massa on November 19th.
This “antisystem”, critical of the Peronists and liberals who have been in power alternately for 20 years, is beginning shock therapy in Latin America's third largest economy, which is suffering from record inflation. Their recipe includes privatizations, “chainsaw” cuts in public spending, dollarization and the suppression of the central bank.
After starting his term by announcing a 50 percent devaluation of the peso, Milei declared that his “top priority” was controlling inflation, at a time when the price index reached 160.9 percent on an annual basis in November.
He also put forward very controversial ideas during the election campaign, such as deregulation of gun sales or a “market solution” for organ donations.
His newly founded Freedom Advances party is only the third force in the lower house of the Argentine Congress, with 38 out of 257 deputies, and Milei must therefore forge alliances to advance his projects.
Deadly earthquakes
In the early hours of February 6, southeastern Turkey and parts of Syria were devastated by one of the worst earthquakes in the last 100 years.
The magnitude 7.8 earthquake, followed by another nine hours later, claimed at least 56,000 lives, nearly 6,000 of them on the Syrian side.
Images of the disaster spread around the world: a father holding the hand of his 15yearold daughter buried in the rubble in Turkey, or a newborn baby miraculously rescued in Syria with his umbilical cord still attached deceased mother hangs.
The material damage is estimated at more than 100 billion euros (almost 110 billion dollars or 543 billion reais, at current prices).
Another deadly earthquake was recorded in Morocco on September 8th. At 11:11 p.m. (7:11 p.m. Brazilian time), a powerful earthquake shook the Marrakech region.
With an estimated magnitude of between 6.8 and 7, the quake was the strongest ever recorded in the country and left nearly 3,000 dead and more than 5,600 injured.
The earthquake damaged around 60,000 houses in almost 3,000 villages in the High Atlas and surrounding areas, some of which were very difficult to access.
Strikes paralyze Hollywood
In May, American screenwriters began a strike, joined by actors in midJuly, to demand better salaries and regulation of the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
This protest, unprecedented in Hollywood since the 1960s, ended in September for the screenwriters, who won a wage contract and protections against the use of AI.
The actors, fearful that studios would use this technology to clone their voices and images and reuse them in perpetuity without compensation or consent, merely ratified the agreement that ended the strike in early December.
In addition to better wages, the strike enabled the introduction of new restrictions on the use of AI.
The movement halted production of American films and series for nearly six months, costing the country's economy at least $6 billion (29.6 billion reais).
The Boiling Planet
At the 28th UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai from November 30 to December 12, countries from around the world adopted a historic commitment for the first time, paving the way for phasing out fossil fuels, the burning of which causes global warming.
After six consecutive months of temperatures between June and November, the European Copernicus Observatory predicted that 2023 will be the hottest year in history.
High temperatures are accompanied by droughts that cause famine, devastating fires and hurricanes of unusual intensity.
Canada experienced a historic wildfire season this year, burning more than 18 million hectares and displacing 200,000 people.
In August, a fire in Hawaii almost completely destroyed the resort of Lahaina on Maui, claiming 97 lives.
Greece was hit hard by wildfires over the summer (causing at least 26 deaths), including the largest ever recorded in the European Union, in Evros (northeast). Then, in September, severe flooding in the Thessaly region killed 17 people.
The flames, fueled by a heat wave, devastated the Greek tourist islands of Rhodes and Corfu, as well as other areas in the Mediterranean such as Algeria and the Italian island of Sicily.
Global warming caused by human activities was the main reason behind the recent heat wave that hit South America, according to a report published in October by the scientific network World Weather Attribution (WWA).
Large parts of South America experienced high temperatures in midSeptember, before the start of spring, with temperatures reaching 40°C in central and northern Brazil and parts of Bolivia, Argentina and Paraguay.
High temperatures and drought, exacerbated by the El Niño phenomenon, caused 58 communities in the Amazon to enter a state of emergency, affecting around 500,000 residents.
Destination: the moon
The moon is once again at the center of the space race. On August 23, India managed to place an unmanned spacecraft, Chandrayaan3, in an unexplored area near the satellite's south pole.
A few days earlier, the Russian lunar probe Luna25, Moscow's first lunar mission since 1976, crashed in the same region, which is a particularly interesting target because of its frozen water.
Before India, only the USA, the Soviet Union and China managed to carry out controlled landings on the moon.
NASA is relying on the Starship rocket developed by Elon Musk's SpaceX for its Artemis missions, which aim to bring astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972 in 2025.
On April 20, Starship launched for the first time in full configuration, but several engines failed and SpaceX intentionally exploded the rocket four minutes later.
During a second test in November, the rocket's upper module reached space before an “anomaly” triggered an explosion.
The Japanese startup ispace failed in its attempt to land the HakutoR module on the moon in April, but the Japanese space agency Jaxa launched a new lunar mission in September.
World champion and forced kiss
Spain wins the Women's World Cup in Sydney, but the celebration is marred by the country's association president, Luis Rubiales, who kisses striker Jenni Hermoso on the mouth during the celebrations, sparking international outrage.
The soccer player denounced an act that was “sexist, inappropriate and without any consent,” but Rubiales described it as a “consensual” kiss before she resigned from her position on September 10.
Rubiales was accused by the courts of “sexual assault” and suspended from all footballrelated activities by FIFA for three years.
The scandal had global repercussions at a time when women's football is attracting increasing interest, as with the ninth edition of the World Cup.
Lightning offensive in NagornoKarabakh
On September 19, Azerbaijan attacked the NagornoKarabakh region, an Armenianmajority breakaway territory that Baku and Yerevan have disputed for more than three decades.
This mountainous enclave, which unilaterally declared independence with the support of Armenia in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union, has been the scene of two wars between these former Soviet republics in the Caucasus (19881994 and 2020).
Within 24 hours, the authorities of the territory abandoned by Yerevan surrendered and a ceasefire was established.
After this lightning offensive, which killed almost 600 people, the majority of the enclave's 120,000 residents fled to Armenia and the authorities of the selfproclaimed republic announced its dissolution on January 1, 2024.
In midNovember, at Armenia's request, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Azerbaijan to allow the “safe” return of NagornoKarabakh residents.
Armenia and Azerbaijan announced in December that they would take “concrete measures” to normalize their relations and agreed to a prisoner exchange. (AFP)
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