Teen activist, Greta Thunberg, from Sweden was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2019 for her efforts to address the global climate crisis. In August 2018, the 16 year old Thunberg started an environmental campaign which eventually turned into a global movement. In 16 months, Thunberg has gone from camping out in front of the Swedish Parliament to meeting heads of states.
Hundreds have come out to protest in India as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government offered a controversial bill in parliament that would give citizenship to non-Muslim minorities from three neighbouring countries. Opposition parties stood against the proposed law that would, for the first time, create a legal pathway to grant Indian nationality on the basis of religion.
Singapore unveiled a new mosquito breeding facility as part of its programme to fight dengue fever. Male insects infected with the Wolbachia bacteria do not bite, and when released into the wild to breed with females, their eggs do not hatch. The number of cases of the deadly illness has been dropping fast as scientists are trying to wipe out the the entire population of mosquitoes by making the female mosquito infertile.
Sanna Marin, Finland’s 34-year-old Minister of Transport and Communications, is all set to take the oath as the world’s youngest prime minister. Following the resignation of PM Antti Rinne, the Social Democratic Party of Finland picked Sanna Marin as the third female prime minister of their country. Marin started her political career from the grassroots level at the age of 27.
According to data from the parenting website BabyCenter, Muhammad is one of the top 10 most popular baby names for boys in the United States. The name has been climbing steadily on BabyCenter’s rankings over the years and first entered the top 100 in 2013. This year the name climbed up four spots and has came on top for the first time.
A Pakistani-American, Amna Nawaz, has created history by becoming the first South Asian American journalist selected to moderate a US presidential debate. Amna Nawaz of PBS News Hour will co-moderate the sixth Democratic primary debate on Dec 19 at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California. Nawaz joined PBS NewsHour in April 2018 and is now its senior national correspondent and primary
King of Saudi Arabia, Salman Bin Abdul Aziz, has issued a royal decree announcing to grant Saudi nationality to brilliant foreign professionals. The step intends to attract bright minds from all over the world. Competent professionals from various disciplines will be granted Saudi nationality including Computer Science, Medicine, Sports and Arts, Robotics etc.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was caught gossiping about US President Donald Trump during a Nato leaders Buckingham Palace reception in London. Trudeau’s conversation with other world leaders was caught on camera and microphone, and the footage went immediately viral. In response to Trudeau’s comments, Trump branded the leader of America’s northern neighbour ‘a nice guy’ but ‘two-faced’.
Relating it to climate change, gun violence and the very nature of democracy, Dictionary.com chose ‘existential’ as its word of the year. The word earned “top of mind awareness” in sustained searches at Dictionary.com in the aftermath of wildfires and Hurricane Dorian, and mass shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and El Paso, Texas. It also reared itself in presidential politics and pop culture.
Wreckage of India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission was spotted by a Nasa satellite orbiting the moon, the US space agency revealed. Vikram lander crashed on the lunar surface in September. Nasa released an image taken by its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) that showed the site of the spacecraft’s impact and associated debris field, with parts scattered over almost two dozen locations spanning several kilometres.