The Most Unforgettable International News Headlines of 2024

A year of presidential elections and Olympic Games, 2024 was always destined to be eventful. The year brought with it extreme tragedy, dramatic political change, and more than a few bizarre international feuds, crises, and memorable moments.

Below, some of the most unforgettable moments of 2024, from moments that destroyed lives to those that changed the history of nations.

Moscow Suffers Massive Jihadist Terror Attack at Rock Concert (March)

Russia suffered one of the worst terrorist attacks of its history in March, when gunmen stormed the Crocus City concert hall in Moscow and opened fire indiscriminately. The hall was scheduled to host Russian rock band Piknik for a concert that night.

The attack claimed 145 lives and was ultimately claimed by the Islamic State, a global terrorist organization that spread far beyond the borders of its “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq after U.S.-backed forces toppled its rule there. Russian authorities identified the shooters as being of Tajik nationality and vowed increased cooperation with Tajikistan to prevent similar events in the future – but not before spuriously accusing Ukraine’s government of involvement in the attack.

Washington responded by revealing that it had warned Russian authorities of a potential attack on a large gathering in Moscow “weeks” before the attack.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi Dies in Still-Unexplained Helicopter Crash (May)

Iran lost its president, Ebrahim Raisi – one of the nation’s most prolific repressors and killers of dissidents before ascending to the presidency – and its Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in a mysterious helicopter accident in May. Iranian propaganda outlets first claimed that Raisi, flying home from an event in Azerbaijan, suffered a “hard landing” in his helicopter. Tehran ultimately confirmed that the helicopter crashed and killed him, the foreign minister, and six others. The helicopter chose to fly in conditions of intense fog and wind, apparently causing the crash, but Iranian government investigations did not offer an explanation for why – or why other helicopters flying alongside the president did not appear to have any problems landing safely.

Iranian officials struggled to contain celebrations in the country of Raisi’s death. In his stead, Tehran held a rigged special election in which “moderate” Masoud Pezeshkian took over the presidency, surprising those who expected “supreme leader” Ali Khamenei to hand the position, subordinate to him, to another “hardliner.”

Colombian President Gustavo Petro Calls Joe Biden a ‘Nazi’ (June)

Colombia elected its first left-wing president, former terrorist militiaman Gustavo Petro, in 2022 and has been living in a state of chronic diplomatic embarrassment ever since. Petro often goes to Twitter to publish unfiltered rants in which he rails against conservatives and has a penchant from attacking Israel, formerly a longtime ally of his country under conservative leadership.

Petro does not typically maintain any more decorum in public than he does on Twitter. During a Palestinian solidarity event in June, the president declared that, in America, “Nazis … lead the government of the United States,” apparently referring to President Joe Biden.

“The Nazis are in power, they ascend through financial capital, they manage to lead the government of the United States – even if it is self-styled Democrat, with progressive currents,” Petro wrote. “But this youthful, black, Arab, diverse, Latino progressivism, which is there, does not manage to change the will of the state, which continues helping to fire the bombs.”

He then went on to compare the Israeli government to Nazi Germany, an offensive comparison that he repeated throughout the year.

That Debate (June)

We’re including the debate between outgoing President Joe Biden and incoming President Donald Trump on our list of international news moments because a) it is arguably the most consequential presidential debate in the world of all time and b) arguably the biggest impact of Democrats suddenly ousting Biden – which Biden reportedly believes cost the Democrats the election – will be on foreign policy. While most of the debate did not focus on international affairs, Biden lost the debate in part by choosing to be the first to bring up his disastrous exit from Afghanistan and offer no clarity on protecting America through strengthening its borders, critical issues in the presidential election.

Joe Biden Calls Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ‘President Putin’ (July)

Shortly after the debate, attempting to rehabilitate his image and convince American voters that his mental acuity was intact, Biden held an event welcoming Zelensky to the NATO summit in Washington.

“Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin!” he proclaimed.

Zelensky issued multiple statements and published a video celebrating Trump’s victory in November.

The Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony (August)

Every year a Summer Olympics cycle takes place, that cycle is indisputably a major international event. The Opening Ceremonies, while typically fodder for water-cooler curiosity, rarely become the most memorable part of the event. This year, Paris made sure that no one could forget its spectacle of bloody severed heads, pagan gods indulging in what many interpreted to be a parody of the last supper of Jesus, and seemingly random allusions to group sex. No one could really explain what any of it had to do with athletic achievement and even those who enjoyed it could at best defend it as a “chaotic mess.”

The Exploding Beepers of Hezbollah (September)

Much of the international political landscape in 2024 was impacted by the ongoing war between Israel and Iranian proxy terrorist groups triggered by the Hamas siege of Israel on October 7, 2023. Iran’s jihadists incurred tremendous losses this year, including the elimination of Hamas’s leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, but few attacks were as dramatic as the sudden detonation of hundreds of explosives apparently implanted in pagers used by terrorists associated with the Lebanese terror organization Hezbollah.

Warning – graphic images: 

Hezbollah leaders reportedly used pagers, long since abandoned as archaic technology in much of the world, to avoid Israeli intelligence. While Israel has not taken responsibility for the exploding pagers, walkie-talkies, and other devices, a New York Times expose revealed evidence that Israeli agents implanted explosives in the pagers ordered from a Taiwanese company, which later claimed to outsource the job to an obscure Hungarian company and have no involvement in the sale.

The explosions ultimately injured thousands and killed at least eight people. They also left the Lebanese populace living in a state of terror, as many of the devices exploded in public areas and hurt innocent bystanders.

The explosions preceded an Israeli attack on Beirut that eliminated the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.

Philippines Vice President Says She Has Hitman Ready to Kill President and Family If She Dies

The fragile political alliance between President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., and the family of his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, collapsed spectacularly in November when the ex-president’s daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, appeared in a live internet telecast suggesting that she believed Marcos was preparing to kill her and that she had arranged for his assassination in the vent that she herself is killed.

“I have talked to someone. I told him that if I am killed, he should kill [Marcos Jr.], [First Lady] Liza Araneta and [House Speaker] Martin Romualdez. No joke,” Duterte shouted in the bizarre live video. “If I am killed, I said, don’t stop until you have killed them, and then he said ‘yes.’”

Vice President Duterte is somehow still in office, but facing three different impeachment proceedings and a criminal investigation over her rant. Marcos himself issued a nationwide address in November stating that he would “fight” Duterte to protect his family and assuring citizens that he had proper security to address the situation. Duterte walked some of it back, claiming her statements were taken “out of context” in bad faith and that she was not a “national security” threat to Marcos.

The investigations into the younger Duterte are ongoing – and Rodrigo Duterte, notorious for threatening to randomly kill people during his presidency, has done little to lower the temperature on the scandal. Duterte has repeatedly accused Marcos of being a drug addict (Marcos has responded by noting that Rodrigo Duterte has admitted to regularly being on fentanyl) and urged the military after his daughter’s comments to stop following Marcos as commander in chief.

The military has so far ignored Duterte’s call and no indication exists that Marcos has lost his grip on power, which he obtained democratically, but Filipinos are clearly losing patience with this political drama – both Marcos and Sara Duterte have seen a significant decline in public confidence in the last month.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol Declares Martial Law (December)

In what will go down as one of the most bizarre political episodes in an already eventful year, the conservative now-former president of South Korea chose to attempt to impose military rule on South Korea in December. South Korea has for decades enjoyed a functional democracy and citizens reacted with shock and confusion to what many called a “self-coup.” Yoon justified it by claiming it necessary to respond to members of the left-wing Democratic Party blocking his legislative agenda at the National Assembly – a typical practice by an opposition party with legislative power in most of the free world. Yoon stuck to his martial law decision only for about six hours before lawmakers in suits stormed the Assembly, elbowing through flanks of heavily armed soldiers, to vote against the martial law decree. Wild scenes of middle-aged men in suits climbing over fences and walls protecting the legislative chambers in Seoul took the world by storm and, by the next morning, it was over.

Yoon initially apologized for the move – pressured by the leadership of his own People Power Party abandoning him – then issued a defiant speech repeating his claim that North Korean “communist” influences necessitated military action. The Democrats moved to impeach him, leaving the country’s government in limbo. Then they impeached interim President Han Duck-soo, and appear prepared to impeach basically every president until they can install their own left-wing alternative.

The next presidential elections in the country are expected in 2027, though observers expect a special election is possible in the interest of stability. In the meantime, Seoul is attempting to address the many urgent issues facing the country – an increasingly belligerent North Korea, the deadliest plane crash in its history – with a hobbled, broken government.

The Fall of Bashar Assad in Syria (December)

The Syrian Civil War, beginning in 2011, was once the most attention-grabbing conflict in the world. By 2017, the anti-Assad resistance had fizzled and the Islamic State caliphate broke apart thanks to the efforts of U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters, relegating the war to a second-tier issue in American mainstream media. Then, out of seemingly nowhere, the al-Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) stormed the second-biggest city in the country, Aleppo, in November. They took it with barely a fight and kept marching deeper into Assad territory, prompting Syrian soldiers to abandon their weapons. In less than two weeks, HTS reached the Damascus city limits and Assad was on a plane to Moscow.

While Assad was a brutal dictator who massacred political dissidents with abandon, Syria’s future in the hands of a jihadist terror organization remains a matter of alarm for both international partners of the country and its own people. In Damascus, civilians have staged multiple protests calling for respect for women’s rights, the defense of Christians against Islamist persecution, and recognition of basic civil liberties.

The head of HTS – Ahmed al-Sharaa, a terrorist formerly known as “Abu Mohammed al-Jolani” – has tried to calm the free world into financing his new regime by wearing Western-style suits and talking of “inclusivity.” Sharaa has confirmed that the new government will be Islamic, however, and many in the country do not trust the jihadist to allow those of other faiths to live freely. Assad brutally persecuted political dissidents but largely left Christians, Shiite minorities, and other religious groups practice their faith openly so long as they were loyal to his regime.

The fall of Assad has also not resolved the ongoing war between the Kurdish fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Turkish-backed jihadist militias in the north of the country. Sharaa has confirmed his group is in communication with the SDF and with Turkey but largely stayed out of that dispute.

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