Summer 2011
"Holy heck... go Canada..."
"Holy hell, what happened in Norway?!"
"Gaddafi has fallen, looks like Arab Spring seems to be dying down..."
The Great Recession lingered on and across the world, solutions were desperate to be found and people trying to figure out what to do. Governments were being viewed with more criticism and judgement over their perceived failures to deal with the troubles of the economy, at least back home. The supposedly traditional ways of dealing with it were not working and solutions were being looked to. Then the news would hit this summer over what's going on in Canada. That of the victory of NDP and the election of Jack Layton as the new Prime Minister of Canada. The Great Recession hitting Canada added further stress to Jack Layton and forced him to take a leave of absence over in early 2010, especially to deal with his newly discovered prostate cancer. As such, the news was joyful when it was heard Jack Layton would beat prostate cancer. This triumph, his criticisms at the Harper administration, the voter suppression scandal and the return of the infamous In and Out Scandal proceeded to crush the Conservative party of Canada and ruin Harper's credability. The so-called "Orange Crush" would see Jack Layton ascend to become the PM, forming a minority government with the Liberals along the total annihilation of the
Bloc Québécois. The Layton Administration focused on promoting on renewable energy for the purposes of creating jobs as well as expanding healthcare for everyone. When asked which route for renewable energy route, the Layton adminsitration have decided to focus on the potential of geothermal power., especially with the potential job prospects it would have. Most notable of this was in Alberta, due to their oil sands. The idea being to replace the oil sands with geothermal energy. The world and the Anglosphere in particular were looking at the NDP of Canada for defying the traditional ways and seeing where it could go.
Newly-elected 2011 Prime Minister of Canada and NDP leader, Jack Layton
However, not everything was exactly well and the world was stunned to hear of a terrorist attack over in Norway, caused by Anders Behring Breivik, a far-right wing anti-immigrant terrorist. According to him, the entire reason for his terrorist attack was to spread his manifesto. The entire ordeal was quite a shock and brought back attention to the notion of homegrown terrorists. The whole thing spurred talks regarding matters of national security, the failure in Norweigian child services of the past and in anti-immigration sentiment, especially with the talks in the European Union to try and take in refugees from the Iraqi-Syrian War. The world shwoed empathy to Norway and led to a sense of greater security to combat extremism. Breivik would come to become the model where modern terrorism would be based on for the 2010s. Some even noted that Breivik operated like Islamic terrorists and noted that for all the talk of one's hatred for the other, that they were all cut from the same cloth, violent individuals who used ideology to justify their own hatred of the other along with all of them being on the right-wing politically. People took more note of this as they believed the troubling economic times would force these extremists to crawl out of the wood work, which resulted in further talk that troubling economic times did not justify cruel behavior. Norway was being rebuilt and perhaps partially to spite Breivik, a good deal of donations and assistance in rebuilding the area came from the Middle East such as Palestine and Iran.
Oslo city centre, shortly after Breivik's ANFO car bomb detonated
Elsewhere in the world, more turbulent issues occurred. While the Iraqi-Syrian War continued and the Arab Spring began slowly dying down with some resolutions or reforms, though the fears of an Arab Winter remained. Issues remained prominent in Yemen while Syria and Iraq continue to require manpower to be stabilized and talks being discussed over the fate of the nations and how to progress in the future. The newest example of this was the revolution going on in Libya combatting Gaddafi. He was quite the controversial figure to say the least; he was decorated with various awards and praised for his
anti-imperialist stance, support for Arab—and then African—unity, and for significant improvements that his government brought to the Libyan people's quality of life. On the other hand, he was opposesd for his reforms, his human rights violations and various other problems such as accusations iof sexual abuse and using the oil money to fund revolutions abroad rather than focus at home. Unsurprisingly among the west, he was painted as some sort of super-villainous figure while others such as Catro and Chavez applauded him. The last days of August saw the Battle of Tripoli, which saw the Gaddafi regime fall and the man would end up escaping. Libya was under new management, though how they would fare, people awaited with wary eyes.
Frontlines during the Battle of Tripoli (20 - 28 Augusts 2011)