Kuwarjeet Singh: What’s going on in the world, in the first few weeks of the year? 

Written by: Kuwarjeet Singh Arora

The Australian Apocalypse

Australia had a month-long fire, where month-long fires have killed many people, millions of animals, and destroyed more than 2,000 houses.

Billions of animals have been wiped out just cause of the fire. Climate change is the cause of the disaster, with temperatures reaching up to 50 degrees Celsius, a massive spike from last year. 

Australian Prime Minister has refused to acknowledge the direct links to climate change, instead blaming the fires on “arsonists.” According to the Guardian, there is a claim emerging that environmentalists have blocked hazard reduction efforts by supposedly opposing dry fuel loads being burned or manually removed. 

Canada is providing Aid to Australia, also many humanitarian organizations are there to help such as Red Cross, Khalsa Aid, UN and many more volunteers helping out.

US & Iran Conflict

The US is trying to start a war with Iran.

The issue started off with Trump, as he ordered the killing of Iran's Qassem Suleimani. According to previous reporting from The Canada Files, Soliemani was the commander of the Quds force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU).

That set Iran to seek revenge by attacking American bases in Iraq, where some of the soldiers in the base were Canadians. Despite the potential risk to Canadian lives, Canada’s Defense Minister Harjit Singh refused to pull troops out of a NATO mission in Iraq.

Iran has admitted that its missiles took down a Ukrainian Plane which was in between Iran's and American bases in Iraq. The plane had 63 Canadians and many other Ukrainian and American passengers.

India’s general strike

In India, a nation-wide general strike of more than 250 million people has been launched against Modi’s BJP government and a new anti-Muslim law, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) fastracks Indian citizenship for migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The act excludes Muslims. It was meant for people escaping persecution for their religion in the three Muslim-majority countries.