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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently “boasted of deploying hypersonic missiles, spy satellites, multi-warhead intercontinental ballistic missiles and the North's own nuclear-powered submarine” (Deutsche Welle, January 14, 2021). In response, South Korean officials are contemplating developing their own nuclear-powered submarine. Analysts are concerned “that North Korea is provoking an arms race with its southern neighbor and, potentially, Japan.”

As 2020 drew to a close, the European Union and China tied up a trade deal known as the “Comprehensive Agreement on Investment”—a deal that, only a year earlier, Chinese leaders thought very unlikely (The Diplomat, January 4, 2021). Ultimately, the agreement seeks to level the playing field for EU investments in China. In turn, more sectors of the European economy will open up for Chinese investment.

Some time ago, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editor, now retired, of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper wrote an insightful editorial entitled, “Where are we now?” Commenting on the intractable political divide and civil unrest in the United States, the editor looked back to June 16, 1858, a time when the nation was facing a crisis as the prospect of civil war loomed over the issue of states’ rights and slavery.

The year 2020 brought a massive locust plague that caused widespread destruction of crops and livelihoods in East African nations (Deutsche Welle, January 5, 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic has only added to the catastrophe, and about 35 million people have been left in a state of “food insecurity.”

Riots and demonstrations rocked a number of American cities in 2020, but the protest in Washington, DC, on January 6 was something different. On that day, protestors claiming to be supporters of President Donald Trump pushed their way into the U.S. Capitol Building, resulting in widespread damage and five deaths. Protestors apparently felt emboldened by comments made by the president in the weeks leading up to the Electoral College certification and his remarks at a rally immediately preceding the onslaught.