A Ukrainian soldier of an artillery unit fires towards Russian positions outside Bakhmut on November 8, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by BULENT KILIC / AFP)
Global health
Despite the progress made in medicine this year, combatting global health issues was an uphill battle as diseases such as Covid-19, monkeypox and the Ebola virus took their toll on many parts of the world. According to a New York Times article of 18 December, “More than 5.47 billion people worldwide have received a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.”
For many of those in the scientific community, this represented a remarkable feat in the fight against Covid-19 and its devastating effects on the global community. Still, the significance of the global rollout was undercut by the vaccine gap, which showed large inequities in administration between the Global North and Global South.
In South Africa, a country with one of the highest percentages of HIV infections, the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority confirmed the registration of an HIV prevention jab by the company ViiV Healthcare, named CAB-LA. The jab is a long-acting version of an antiretroviral drug that is taken bi-monthly and has proven to reduce an individual’s chances of contracting the virus by 79%.
Although the cost (R54 000 a pop) is still a point of contention in South Africa, ViiV Healthcare has vowed to offer CAB-LA to lower-income countries at a not-for-profit price. Although Covid-19 remained the biggest health concern for people globally, mental health ranked second as a high health concern, according to an Ipsos study.
A turbulent year for tech
Top tech news this year was the changes (and the backlash) after Elon Musk closed his $44 billion Twitter acquisition in October and decided to fire thousands of employees around the world. But Twitter wasn’t the only tech company that made headlines in 2022.
Soon after Musk stirred up a storm, Meta (the parent company of Facebook) chief executive Mark Zuckerberg laid off 11 000 employees in response to decreased advertising revenue and earnings. Zuckerberg emailed employees stating that Meta was “taking a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company by cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1”.
As Amazon and other tech companies continue to dismiss employees, Tik Tok received pushback regarding its use in numerous US states as officials announced their concerns over the Beijing-based company’s alleged mining of personal data from American citizens. Some 19 states have at least partially blocked access to the social media platform on government computers despite a lack of evidence of any threats or issues in a country where more than 100 million of its users live.
Bandits and terrorists teaming up in Nigeria?
Although the US was again in the spotlight this year for mass shootings, Nigeria was one of several countries that gained international attention for incidents of gun violence that were often the result of bandit attacks, herder-farmer clashes and ethno-religious conflicts.
The country started 2022 with the Zamfara massacres, which took place from 4 to 6 January and resulted in the deaths of more than 200 people, according to some sources. The attack was led by bandits, who are recognised by the government as terrorists, as they kidnapped, killed and looted across a number of regions in the Zamfara state. The attack has been labelled the deadliest terrorist attack in Nigeria’s recent history.
It was followed by the Plateau State massacres in April, another attack in Zamfara in May, and a bomb-shooting attack in Ondo state against a church of Catholic worshippers in June. Multiple deaths were recorded in each incident. On 19 December, local officials in the state of Kaduna reported more than 20 civilian deaths after two separate attacks by bandits in the state.
Reports attribute the attacks to greed, although experts suggest that there may be increasing ties between bandits and jihadist groups.
Slavery apology gets backlash
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte in December apologised on behalf of his government for the Netherland’s role in the Atlantic slave trade, in which it transported more than half a million people from Africa and Asia to the Americas.
“I apologise for the past actions of the Dutch State: to enslaved people in the past, everywhere in the world, who suffered as a consequence of those actions, as well as to their daughters and sons, and to all their descendants, up to the present day,” Rutte said in a nationally televised speech.
After his speech, Rutte told reporters the government would not compensate “people — grandchildren or great-grandchildren of enslaved people”.
For that reason, in addition to a lack of consultations with descendants of slaves, many have criticised the apology. “Reparation wasn’t even mentioned,” said one director from an organisation called The Black Archives. “So, beautiful words, but it’s not clear what the next concrete steps will be.”
In 2022, several nations, leaders and royals addressed or apologised for the abuses of slavery, including in speeches by King Charles III and the Prince of Wales.
Taliban continues banning female education
Since the Taliban takeover last year in August, women’s liberation in Afghanistan has taken precedence as a human rights issue. As recently as mid-December, the Taliban announced the closure of the country’s universities for women.
“You all are informed to implement the mentioned order of suspending education of females until further notice,” said a letter signed by the higher education ministry.
The announcement means that women will experience further limitations in regard to access to education since most secondary schools have already banned girls from attending. Other rules in the country require women to travel with a male relative, adhere to strict dress codes and prohibit them from going to venues like parks or gyms.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, hundreds of Iranian civilians have been killed since protests broke out over Mahsa Amini, a woman who died in police custody after being arrested for not adhering to a dress code.
Animals gone wild
Animal-attack-themed films such as Nope, Beast and Jurassic World Dominion raked in at the box office in 2022. Apparently there’s just something about watching animals wreak havoc on society. In reality, however, animal attacks, which saw an increase in reportage and occurrence in some regions this year, are anything but entertaining.
Animal attacks were noted in zoos, holiday spots, villages and notably in South African neighbourhoods where a spate of pitbull attacks ignited debate over ownership and banning the breed. Victims of fatal attacks included a three-year-old Hennenman boy and a 15-month-old from East London.
In Yamaguchi, Japan, residents saw 50 attacks on humans, including children, by Japanese macaque monkeys in incidents that began in July. Conservation efforts revived the species’ dwindling population efforts but failed to see the potential effect of the extinction of its main predators, namely the Japanese wolf and the mountain hawk-eagle. In India, 112 elephant attacks were reported in 2021-22 with shrinking forests and urbanisation being cited as the main reason, while calls for government intervention in a series of hippo attacks in some Kenyan regions increased in December.
Russia-Ukraine war
Footage captured by a Ukrainian drone was released online on 19 December, showing the dreadful state of the city of Bakhmut as battles continue following Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson in November. In the three-minute video, plumes of smoke cloud the air, fighters clash and fires surround buildings in the city, which had a population of 70 000 prior to the war.
Reports state that Bakhmut’s value for Russia lies in its location, which would allow President Vladimir Putin’s forces to launch strikes on several key cities in the Donetsk region.
According to the Institute for the Study of War and its daily assessments of the invasion, Russia experienced defeat in maintaining positions in the southern region of the city.
“I’d like to wish them light, but it’s such a difficult situation that there is light and then there isn’t. The main thing is for there to be inner light,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of the troops he visited at the front lines of the city.
As the war runs into its tenth month, the civilian death toll has exceeded 6 000, including the deaths of more than 400 children, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.