Super women and console wars: what awaits us in 2020

What will happen and what to talk about in 2020? This publication found out with the BBC, it has compiled a selection of people and events that will attract the attention of the whole world.

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US Elections

It is too early to make predictions about the US presidential election.

In the end, the impeachment process of US President Donald Trump is in full swing, and the Democratic Party has not even chosen a candidate.

But in any case, the struggle for Senate seats will be of great importance in the November 3 elections.

Control of the upper chamber makes life easier—or harder—for presidents, since the Senate has the final say on legislation, budgets, and judicial appointments.

Republicans currently hold 53 of the 100 seats, but Trump's party will have 23 to defend in the election, compared with just 12 for Democrats, who already control the lower House of Representatives.

Trump may well be re-elected, but if the alignment of forces in the Senate changes, it will greatly complicate his life.

New Arab Spring?

In the second half of 2019, protests rocked Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon (Algeria and Sudan faced them in the first half), and this has people talking about a new Arab Spring.

This name was given to the wave of uprisings, which swept through many Arab countries in 2011.

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“The four countries that saw waves of protests in 2019—Algeria, Sudan, Iraq and Lebanon—are countries that were left behind by the Arab Spring in 2011,” says Dalia Ghanem, a researcher at the Carnegie Middle East Center.

“This is a new season of discontent,” she adds.

But will demonstrations continue in 2020, or perhaps even intensify?

“This wave of public discontent is likely to spread to other countries,” says Ishak Divan, an expert on Arab world affairs and a professor at PSL University in Paris.

“The main difference from the first wave of 2011 is the economic conditions. Growth has slowed, government debt has risen and unemployment has increased,” he adds.

“Therefore, if the driving force behind the preliminary uprising (in 2011) was the struggle for dignity, today people are more likely driven out of protests by hunger,” he believes Sofa.

Is anyone there?

The existence of planets outside our solar system is not new; more than 1990 have been discovered since the late 4000s.

But the launch of the Cheops space telescope on December 18 began a new era in their research: over the next three years, the European Space Agency's spacecraft will take a closer look at 400-500 exoplanets.

It will examine several planetary characteristics to identify "promising themes" for the next generation of "explorers," which includes NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), due to launch in 2021.

Elections to Watch Out for Beijing

Over the past months, China has had a lot of problems because of the protests in Hong Kong, but already at the beginning of next year, new challenges will appear before its leaders.

Taiwan is an island that China considers a province but has been effectively independent from China since the communist government took power after World War II.

And on January 11 there will be a presidential election.

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Possible bad news for Beijing: polls show that President Cai Inwen has a good chance of re-election.

The Tsai Democratically Progressive Party has a strong nationalist stance and advocates for independence, aided by increased protests in Hong Kong.

In a recent poll published on December 17, Ms. Tsai was 38 points ahead of her main opponent.

African Lions on the alert

On May 30, 2019, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) came into force. This is the world's largest free trade zone in terms of the number of participating countries (54).

It has been called a "political, economic and diplomatic milestone" that will boost growth on the continent - the International Monetary Fund has estimated that the trade deal could boost economic welfare for the continent as a whole by two to four percent.

They plan to start free trade in July, which is expected to be an incentive for business between African countries: exports between the countries of the continent accounted for less than 20% of total trade in 2018, which is significantly lower than in Asia (59%) and Europe (69 %).

New star in the Olympic horizon

The Olympic Games have opened the world to many young geeks.

American diver Marjorie Gesting was just 13 years old when she won a gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Games and became the youngest official Olympic champion - although an unknown French boy aged 7-10 is believed to have helped the Dutch rowing team win the top prize at Olympics in Paris 1900.

But Sky Brown wants to break that record.

In an era when elite competitions are much tougher than 80 years ago, the 11-year-old British skateboarder received a bronze medal at the World Championships in September 2019 and will become the UK's youngest Olympic athlete if she gets the right to participate in the Games in Tokyo.

The games will be held from July 24 to August 9, and this year the program will debut skateboarding, rock climbing, surfing, karate and softball.

Will malaria disappear in a few more countries?

Malaria, a mosquito-borne disease, killed more than 2018 people in 405, with 000 million cases reported by the World Health Organization.

The good news is that the number of cases worldwide has declined, and nine countries can completely eradicate the disease in 2020.

Among them, in particular, may be China. Previously, this most populated country on Earth had approximately 30 million cases and 300 thousand deaths per year due to malaria.

Iran, Belize, El Salvador, Suriname, Cape Verde, Bhutan, East Timor and Malaysia are also on track to be free of the disease.

WHO indicates that of the 91 countries at risk, 38 have already eliminated the disease.

Superwomen on screen

Hollywood has many new releases planned for 2020, but one trend stands out: women getting the lead roles in superhero films.

In addition to the new film in the Wonder Woman series, the adventures of Black Widow, the character played by Scarlett Johansson in the Avengers franchise, will be shown on screens around the world.

The villains will also find their place: if in 2019 the star of the Joker shone brightly, then in 2020 will be the year of his mistress and accomplice Harley Queen.

The "last" return of the master spy

No Time to Die, the 25th James Bond film (although there were three others that are generally not considered "official"), will mark British actor Daniel Craig's final appearance in the role.

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There will certainly be plenty of talk and theories regarding the next incarnation of the famous secret agent, especially since the film stars Craig as a retired Bond who, among others, faces off against a new female 00 agent.

The 'Greta effect' will impact travel

“Slow travel” emerged a few years ago as another trend in the “slow movement,” a culture of generally slowing down the pace of life.

However, promoting the “advantage of trains over planes” has taken on new meaning after climate activist Greta Thunberg made it part of her campaign against climate change.

To reduce the carbon footprint, she travels long distances by trains instead of flying, and even sailed the Atlantic for a speech at the UN in New York.

Although other travelers may not go this far, slow travels have identified one of the leading trends in the travel industry in 2020, particularly the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA).

The future is VSCO

15-year-old American Emma Marie is one of the apologists for VSCO, a trend that has spread like wildfire on the Internet. Her YouTube account has over 1000000 subscribers.

VSCO is a teenage subculture of informal fashion with a green twist.

It takes its name from the image-editing and sharing program of the same name, and the New York Times has described it as having a “relaxed, environmental aesthetic.”

A sign that this is something more than a passing trend is that the VSCO movement is affecting the business: a survey in the United States found a 21% reduction in makeup spending among teenage girls in 2019.

Billy Isle's Rise

When nominations for the 62nd Grammy Awards were announced in November, many were talking about the defeat of South Korean pop group BTS.

Representatives of the K-POP trend did not fall into any categories, despite the fact that they are breaking record after record in the music industry.

These conversations were somewhat overshadowed by the breakthrough of Billy Elish.

The 17-year-old American singer-songwriter received nominations for all the major awards, including song of the year, record of the year, album of the year and best new artist.

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In 2020, she will go on her first world tour of 42 concerts on three continents.

Console wars

Prepare your payment cards: in 2020, both Sony and Microsoft will release new game consoles.

Sony's PS5 and Microsoft's Xbox Project Scarlett are due out later this year and promise to take video games to the next level, especially in terms of graphics.

Both products are still shrouded in mystery, although game industry insiders speculate that consoles will cost about $ 500.

Microsoft is trying to challenge Sony's dominance: As of October 2019, Sony has sold more than 100 million PS4 units worldwide, more than double the sales of Microsoft's equivalent Xbox One (43 million), according to consultancy VG Chartz.

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