Rewind 2021: Covid, coups, Taliban...the tumultuous year that was

In spite of the nearly eight billion vaccine shots that have been administered, over five million people died from the virus. Many poor countries still lack access to vaccines.

A wide range of quarantines and lockdowns were imposed globally, especially in Australia's major cities. 

Slowly, the borders reopened and the Olympics took place in Tokyo a year late to empty stadiums.

The world sees a resurgence of the pandemic, with some countries having to reimpose restrictions. 

As the clinical trials of anti-Covid drugs raise hopes of a return to normality, however, a new strain of COVID-19, the highly infectious Omicron has now emerged. 

There is one question on everyone's minds: will coronavirus ever go away?

On August 15, after US and NATO troops withdrew, the Taliban entered Kabul without meeting resistance.

The group regains control after 20 years of exile under a US-led international coalition.

What followed was just chaos.

Thousands of people rush to Kabul's airport to flee as diplomats, foreigners, and Afghans are evacuated. Many people die in stampede-like situations, or as a result of suicide bombings.

The last remaining troops withdrew on August 30, ending the longest war in American history.

Since then Afghanistan has witnessed an oppresion of women, minorities and a number of diktats, all of which have driven the country backwards, undoing any progress it made under the US-led coalition.

Myanmar: The country's decade-long experiment with democracy ends on February 1 when the country's leader Aung San Suu Kyi is arrested in a coup. What ensued was mass protests. The violent suppression of these mass protests against the military junta has left more than 1,200 people dead and thousands arrested. 

According to the latest reports, Suu Kyi has been sentenced to four years in prison for inciting unrest against the military and violating COVID guidelines.

Mali: Strongman Colonel Assimi Goita carries out the country's second coup in ten months on May 24.

Tunisia: Taking wide-ranging powers, Tunisian President Kais Saied claims there are "imminent dangers" in a country.

Guinea: On September 5, President Alpha Conde is overthrown in a military coup.

Sudan: The military launched a coup. A state of emergency has been declared by Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who seized control of the transitional government created after the 2018-19 revolution that ousted the autocrat Omar Hassan al-Bashir. 

Around the world, extreme climate events abound, from catastrophic floods in Germany and Belgium to devastating and long-running wildfires in the US, Russia, Turkey, Greece, Spain, and Algeria.

Western Canada experiences a "heat dome" in June that pushes temperatures above 50 degrees Celsius.

At the COP26 summit in Glasgow in November, nearly 200 countries vowed to take action against global warming. Despite this, scientists say commitments do not meet what is needed to slow dangerous temperature increases.

As per an AFP report, at the televised finish of a series of public hearings on the attack, committee chairman Bennie Thompson claimed Trump "recklessly blazed a path of lawlessness and corruption" as he worked to invalidate the results of the 2020 US election.

Alexei Navalny, one of the Kremlin's most prominent critics, is arrested on his return to Moscow five months after his poisoning attack in Germany, which he blames on Vladimir Putin. The Russian government denies any involvement.

The following month, Navalny was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for embezzlement charges he accuses of being politically motivated. 

In October, the jailed critic of the Russian president is awarded the 2021 Sakharov Prize for human rights by the European Parliament.

Violence breaks out between Israel and the Palestinians on May 3, sparked by a Jewish settlement's years-long effort to take over homes in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in east Jerusalem.

As violence spreads to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, hundreds are injured.

260 Palestinians die in the 11-day war that follows the first clashes after the Islamist movement Hamas, which rules in the Gaza Strip, launches rockets at Israel. A soldier and thirteen Palestinians died on the Israeli side.

Migrants, mostly from the Middle East, spend November camping out in freezing temperatures on Belarus's border with Poland in hopes of entering the EU.

Western countries accuse Minsk of orchestrating the influx following sanctions imposed after the brutal suppression of a protest movement against "Europe's last dictator", Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, in 2020. 

However, Belarus and Russia insist they are not responsible for the crisis and blame Europe for not taking the refugees in.