From Chief Twit's reign to FIFA's desert breakout: The remarkable moments of 2022

When President Vladimir Putin launched 'special military operations' in Ukraine in February 2022, few expected it to last more than a few weeks given Moscow's military prowess. But what became the biggest conflict in Europe since the end of second world war, millions of Ukrainians fled abroad as West imposed unprecedented sanctions on Moscow.

Russian forces failed to capture the capital, Kyiv, and topple the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky. 

In the south, Russian forces capture most of Ukraine's Black Sea coastline, including the port of Mariupol, which is destroyed in a three-month siege.

In April, Russian forces were accused of massacring scores of civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.

By September, Ukrainian forces are regaining ground in the northeast and south.

As the year ends, Russian strikes relentlessly batter Ukraine's energy infrastructure, causing power cuts across the country as winter sets in.

In December, on his first overseas trip since the beginning of war, Zelensky went to Washington to address the US Congress, appealing for long-term US support.

In Iran, the custodial death of 22-year-old Mahsa Al-Amini following her arrest for alleged violations of the country's Islamic dress code sparked the biggest protests in decades, marking the greatest challenge to Tehran's theocratic regime since it got first established in 1980.

On the street and on social media women and girls defiantly removed their headscarves.

Iran sought to quell the protests by sentencing many of the protesters to death.

On December 8, Mohsen Shekari, 23, became the first person executed by authorities over the protests. Four days later Majidreza Rahnavard, 23, was hanged in public.

The Oslo-based monitor Iran Human Rights on December 19 said that Iran's security forces have killed at least 469 people in the protests while at least 14,000 people have been arrested, according to the UN.

President Xi Jinping cemented his control at the helm of Chinese Communist Party's affairs, winning a historic third term in November to administer one of the world's most authoritarian regimes. But the assertions of Xi being China's most powerful leader went in thin air as the Chinese people lost patience with country's stringent 'zero Covid policy', forcing Beijing to step back. But soon after, visuals of China's overburdened hospitals with millions of reported Covid cases compelled Xi to come out to make a rare statement to assuage public sentiments on country's worsening Covid crisis. 

Hundreds of people took part in 'white paper protests' om Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Urumqi, Wuhan and other cities, holding a blank white paper in a bid to evade the crackdown by authorities. Some even dare to call for Xi's resignation.

Along the Line of Actual Control with India, while the de-escalation took place on a number of friction points, the standoff continues at two friction points in eastern Ladakh. Another attempted incursion by the Chinese into northeast India's state of Arunachal Pradesh's Tawang sector was thwarted by the Indian troops. The visuals of a Chinese incursion, attributed to be from the same sector but from a different time frame, were nothing short of embarrassment for Beijing.

As the year approached conclusion, China's warplanes entered into Taiwan around Christmas, forcing Taipei to expand its conscription from as early as 2024. The conclusion of 2022 corresponded with a 'loss of face' for Xi, facing an unprecedented December of challenges. 

Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak. In one calendar year, London's Downing Street had three occupants with the last ones continuing as 2022 concludes. While Johnson's exit and Truss' entrance were ceremoniously granted by Queen Elizabeth II, Rishi Sunak, Britain's first Prime Minister of Indian subcontinental lineage entered 10 Downing Street following an audience with King Charles III. 

Shortly after granting Liz Truss a constitutionally ceremonious charge of the Prime Minister's Office, Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-serving British monarch passed away.

For Boris Johnson, a series of 'partygate' scandals led to his sidelining and eventual ouster from power. Whereas Liz Truss' stunning fall from grace, sparked by a disastrous mini-budget, paved the way for Rishi Sunak into 10, Downing Street. The last half of 2022 was dominated by a sharp cost-of-living crisis, resulting in part from the Russia-Ukraine war and the gas supply disruption that corresponded to it. 

In pop culture, Netflix released a six-episode docuseries featuring Meghan Markle and Prince Harry that unravelled what went about in the royal family after formalisation of the Sussex's marital alliance. 

Argentina's Lionel Messi finally lifted football's ultimate prize, the FIFA World Cup. While the balance of arguments to settle football's Greatest Of All Time (GOAT) debate tilted in Messi's favour, the world cup in Qatar also lifted the veils off football's underdogs such as the ones from Iran and Morocco. It gave Saudi Arabia a rare moment of sports euphoria and visuals of remarkable celebrations from Senegal. Despite tumultuous geopolitics, the world sat with bated breath in a rare moment of symbolic unity as France and Argentina knocked it off in a blockbuster final.

But for the host Qatar, the aftermath of world cup remained as conflicted as was the beginning filled with reports of human rights violations during the building of infrastructure for the world cup. All but one stadium will change in its size and use. Most will be retrofitted as shopping centers or university grounds, and will include cafes, health clinics and community spaces.

Twitter was finally added by billionaire business magnate Elon Musk into the long list of companies he owns, and until recently ran successfully too. 

Musk bought the microblogging platform for $44 billion on October 27 after being threatened with a lawsuit should he withdraw from the deal. Musk began his reign by firing off Twitter CEO and other top executives and laying off about half of company's workforce. 

Musk then announced that users will have to start paying for their blue verification check marks via a special subscription, and that suspended accounts, including that of Kanye “Ye” West and former US president Donald Trump, will be reinstated as part of his new policy to assert freedom of speech on Twitter. 

On December 19, Musk launched a Twitter poll asking whether he should step down as CEO and promised to abide by the results of the poll. Some 57.5 percent voted in favour, with Musk responding that he will step down as soon as he finds someone “foolish enough” to take the job.  

The conclusion of 2022 has been anything but smooth for Musk with Tesla shares plummeting by 69 per cent this year. 

There were few stories this year that the news desks passed forward with 'historic' adjective in the headlines. The announcement by the US researchers about nuclear fusion breakthrough passed the 'historic' test and was drafted as a moment of remarkable significance in humankind's quest for a source of unlimited, clean power. 

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) said it had used the world's largest laser to create, for the first time, a fusion reaction that replicated the process that powers the sun and generated more energy than it took to produce -– a goal pursued by scientists for decades.

Nuclear fusion has been touted by its supporters as a clean, abundant and safe source of energy that could eventually allow humanity to break its dependence on coal, crude oil, natural gas and other hydrocarbons driving a global climate crisis.

After two years of conflict that reportedly killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and led to near-famine conditions in Tigray, Ethiopia's government and Tigrayan rebels agreed on a landmark peace deal.

The agreement allows critical humanitarian aid to resume to the northern region.