Foreign media article: 2021 is a disappointing year for the world

The UAE's Gulf News website published an article titled "2021, A Disappointing Year for the World" on December 27, written by Ashok Swain, a professor at Uppsala University in Sweden, which said that there is no doubt that 2021 will be very frustrating. The cause of this disappointment is nothing more than bad politics and policy. The full text is excerpted below:

As the year draws to a close, it's time to look back and reflect on the past 12 months. A year ago, when the world entered 2021, there was great hope in the air. The COVID-19 vaccine has made people optimistic that the world will soon win the battle against the epidemic. After Four years of Trump's turbulent White House, it is expected that Biden's victory will bring a degree of sanity and maturity to American politics and the global power system.

By the end of the year, however, many hopes had been dashed. There is no doubt that 2021 will be very frustrating. The cause of this disappointment is nothing more than bad politics and policy.

After a long battle against the coronavirus, scientists developed a COVID-19 vaccine in 2020, bringing hope for recovery. In early 2021, mass production of COVID-19 vaccines began, and countries also want to launch the largest vaccination campaign ever.

But the official global covid-19 death toll in 2021 is more than 3.5 million. Countries such as India, Brazil, South Africa and Russia witnessed massive deaths during the second wave.

Rich countries are vulnerable again, with more than 80 percent of their adult populations fully vaccinated, but only 6 percent of Africa's 1.2 billion people have received two doses.

This global vaccine "apartheid" not only prolongs the global epidemic, but also causes the emergence of new strains such as TheOmecron.

2021 has not become a year of "revival" for Western countries, but a "year of coups". In addition to trump supporters' attempted coup on Jan. 6, there have been as many as six military operations around the world this year, setting a new high in the past 20 years.

This puts a question mark on hopes of a unified global policy to address the climate crisis. The world is as divided as ever when it comes to developing a common strategy to combat climate change – if not greater.

There is no doubt that 2021 will be a very disappointing year. The world desperately needs a better 2022.

Source: Reference News Network