what happened last week - New Year's Message

Hi,

This is Sham, your personal news curator.

The New Year, according to the Gregorian calendar, has begun. 2024 is looking like a pretty eventful year already.

To give you just a small overview, more than 50 elections are happening across the world, some 18 of them in Africa alone, Brazil is leading the G20 group this year (I expect a lot of climate-related politics), support for populist right-wing parties is growing in Europe, Donald Trump might re-enter the US political arena, and the Israel-Gaza war is raising a lot of new questions about what it means to be a humanitarian.

I’m not one for forced hopeful New Year’s Messages.

Not all elections are free and fair (I’m grateful to live in a country where my voice counts), not everyone is convinced that climate change is real (even though science continues to prove us otherwise, again and again), many people have a desire for strong leadership and believe right-wing politics is the answer (I personally think it’s worth thinking about neglected sources of strength for our societies, e.g. in our local communities), and the universality of human rights is currently at stake (actually, that one is always at stake).

So, my New Year’s Message sounds a little… sober?

I will continue to pay attention.

Join me.

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If you support the idea of bursting Western-centric bubbles, I’d be grateful if you considered pitching in financially. It’ll allow me to plan more long-term.

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Thank you for being a part of whlw.

Talk to you on Monday,
Sham