2011 in World Events

Well, its that time again. The obligatory year in review post. 2011 was a very important year. As a matter of fact, I would go as far as to say that 2011 was the most important year of my lifetime, at least in terms of global events. Here are just some of the things that happened:

• Arab Spring
• We saw revolutions in Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia. Yemen and Jordan got new governments. Syria is on the rocks. Of course, it remains to be seen the final effects of Arab Spring, but it seems that its influences is less on the direct governments on those countries, but more the fact that we are seeing more social activist movements, such as Occupy, worldwide.
• Japan Quake
• Japan had the single costliest disaster in world history when a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck the region, causing a massive tsunami killing over 15,000 people and costing Japan $235 billion in production losses and damages. The quake also produced the Fukushima nuclear disaster, which was considered the most dangerous in history, on par with Chernobyl. The disasters wrecked Japan's economy because of the loss of production. They're just now getting their economic foundations back together, a whole 9 months after the disaster.
• Death to the Dictator
• 2011 saw the deaths of very important people: Osama bin Laden, Libyan dictator Moammar Ghadaffi, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il just to name a few.
• Collapse of European Economy
• Greece and Italy's economies basically collapsed this year and the worth of the Euro is plunging. Meanwhile, it seems that Germany is basically keeping everybody else afloat while waiting for the economy to recover.
• End of the Iraq War
• The United State formally ends operations in Iraq, ending a major conflict that had taken up basically the entire period of my life where I was cognizant of the news and global affairs.