Trump tariffs, Nepal and Louvre: Top 10 world events that defined 2025

Raging wars, extreme climatic disasters, devastating plane crashes, humanitarian crises, and most of all, Donald Trump’s tariffs, kept the world huffing and puffing through 2025.

Wars raged through Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan, with humanity brought to its knees, even as the rest of the world grappled with its own issues, mostly Trump’s punishing import duties.

Here are the top 10 events that made headlines across the world in 2025.

10. Natural disasters that killed and maimed thousands

Earthquakes, wildfires, heatwaves, tropical storms—these came in mega-sized packages in 2025, with extreme climate becoming the new normal.

The year started with a major quake in Tibet that left more than 50 people dead. Another of India’s neighbours, Myanmar, was rocked by a giant of temblor (7.7-magnitude) on March 28. The quake near Mandalay killed between 3,300 and 5,500 people. And on August 31, it was the turn of Afghanistan to be hit by a quake, with the final toll crossing 2,200.

As Asia grappled with quakes, Europe suffered heatwaves, and the US fought wildfires. The European heatwaves in the summer of 2025 left an estimated number of at least 4,700 fatalities, with some estimates taking the figure to over 16,500. The California wildfires of January turned out to be the costliest ever in global history. The Eaton and Palisades fires caused damage worth $50–61 billion and destroyed over 18,000 structures.

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Coming to tropical storms, Cyclone Senyar left over 1,353 fatalities across Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia in November-end, while monsoon floods in Pakistan killed over 1,040 people and displaced millions. And in Nigeria, the Mokwa floods in May resulted in at least 500 confirmed deaths. Towards the end of the year, Cyclone Ditwah caused widespread destruction in Sri Lanka.

In the Western Pacific, Super Typhoon Ragasa lashed Hong Kong while Typhoons Matmo and Kalmaegi caused significant fatalities in the Philippines and Thailand. And in the Atlantic, Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 storm, devastated Jamaica, Haiti, and Cuba, while Hurricane Milton ravaged Florida and the Southeast US the month before.

9. Series of attacks in US on New Year’s Day

The year started with a lot of bad news for the US, with a series of high-profile attacks on New Year’s Day rocking the country.

Three separate incidents on January 1 resulted in at least 16 deaths and dozens of injuries. Around 3.15 am, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar rammed a rented pickup truck into crowds on Bourbon Street. After the crash, he engaged in a shootout with police before being killed. Jabbar, identified by the FBI as a self-radicalized lone wolf inspired by ISIS, claimed 14 victims and injured 57.

Hours later, at 8.39 am, a Tesla Cybertruck loaded with fireworks exploded outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas. The perpetrator, Matthew Livelsberger, was killed; seven bystanders were injured. A separate incident in New York City left 10 people injured.

8. A dramatic theft at the Louvre

One of the most dramatic events of 2025 was the brazen daylight robbery at the famed Louvre museum in Paris on October 19.

In a heist that could have made Danny Ocean proud, four thieves disguised as construction workers used a truck-mounted furniture lift to reach a second-story balcony around 9.30 am, just 30 minutes after the museum opened, stole eight pieces of the French Crown Jewels valued at about $102 million (about Rs 900 crore), and fled on high-powered motor scooters, Dhoom-style.

The entire operation lasted less than eight minutes, with the thieves spending only four minutes inside the Galerie d’Apollon (Apollo Gallery), where they used disc cutters to breach glass display cases. On the way out, they managed to drop the Crown of Empress Eugenie, which was damaged but can be restored.

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So far, five suspects, described as petty criminals, have been charged with the theft but the eight stolen items are yet to be recovered. The Louvre has since transferred other valuable jewels to the Bank of France but the theft exposed significant security weaknesses the world’s most high-profile museum.

It turned out that CCTV monitoring covered only 39 per cent of the museum’s rooms and the camera in the Apollo Gallery was not even positioned correctly during the break-in. And here’s the best: The surveillance system had the most imaginative password one could think of—“Louvre”.

7. Jaffar Express, the train that was hijacked

By the end of 2025, Jaffar Express became one of the most well-known trains of the world, but for all the wrong reasons. The passenger train that connects Pakistan’s restive Balochistan with Peshawar was the target of a series of severe attacks, primarily by Baloch separatist groups, in 2025.

And it all started with an unprecedented mass hijacking in March, though frequent bombings continued throughout the year. On March 11, the Jaffar Express, travelling from Quetta to Peshawar, was hijacked by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) near the Bolan Pass.

The militants used eight IEDs to blow up the tracks, forcing the train to stop inside a remote tunnel. Over 30 militants then surrounded the train, took hundreds of passengers hostage, and separated them by ethnicity and military status. The 30-hour standoff resulted in at least 31 deaths and 38 injuries. The Pakistani military launched a large-scale operation and managed to neutralise all 33 insurgents and rescue 354 hostages.

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The Jaffar Express hijack led to a chain reaction, with certain quarters in Pakistan blaming India for the “covert operation”, to avenge which they triggered the Pahalgam attack in April, which left 26 people dead. This in turn led to the Indian military’s Operation Sindoor, which brought the matter to rest after several terror hubs in Pakistan were destroyed.

As for the Jaffar Express, it continued to be targeted in nearly every month of 2025, with several incidents causing derailments and injuries.

6. When Bangladesh recorded its deadliest plane crash

On July 21, Bangladesh recorded its deadliest aviation accident in decades when a military training jet crashed into the Milestone School and College campus in Dhaka’s Uttara neighbourhood. At least 36 people, including 32 students, three teachers, and the pilot, were killed, while more than 170 people were injured, many with severe burns.

The jet—a Chengdu FT-7BGI, a Chinese-made training fighter jet operated by the Bangladesh Air Force—took off at 1.06 pm for a routine training mission and crashed roughly 12 minutes later, striking the school’s seven-storey and two-storey buildings while classes were in session.

The pilot, Flight Lieutenant Towkir Islam Sagar, died from his injuries at a military hospital after failing to eject due to the aircraft’s low altitude. Maherin Chowdhury, a teacher who rescued more than 20 students from the burning building, later died from her injuries.

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A formal investigation report submitted in November 2025 attributed the crash to pilot error following an initial mechanical malfunction that caused the aircraft to stall. Following the disaster, the investigation committee recommended that all initial Bangladesh Air Force training be moved outside of Dhaka to ensure public safety.

5. Sudan war enters third year

While the wars in Gaza and Ukraine are much discussed and commented upon by the rest of the world, not many even know that a devastating war has been raging in Sudan for three years.

The conflict—between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by General ‘Hemedti’ Dagalo—is widely considered the world’s most severe humanitarian and displacement crisis.

Currently, the RSF controls about 40–50 per cent of the country, including almost all of the western Darfur region. The SAF maintains control over roughly 60 per cent of the country, primarily in the north and east.

The crisis has led to the displacement of over 14 million people, including 9.5 million internally, and over 4.3 million fleeing to the neighbouring countries like Egypt, Chad, and South Sudan. Around 21 million people—nearly half the population—face acute food insecurity, and official famine declarations were issued for El Fasher and Kadugli in late 2025.

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While the RSF faces widespread international condemnation for systematic mass killings, sexual violence, and ethnic cleansing against non-Arab groups in Darfur, the US, the UK, and the EU have recently imposed new sanctions on high-ranking RSF officials and networks.

A permanent ceasefire process, backed by the US and Saudi Arabia, has been in the works but the actual truce looks distant so far.

4. Russia-Ukraine conflict enters critical phase

The Russia-Ukraine conflict, raging since the former invaded the latter in February 2022, has entered a critical phase amid US-led diplomatic efforts for peace.

Russia currently occupies about 19.2 per cent of Ukrainian territory, while estimates suggest more than 1.1 million Russian soldiers and 400,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or injured so far.

Through the year, Russia continued a systematic campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, with many regions, including Kyiv, facing up to 16 hours of daily blackouts, as the country braces for yet another winter in the biting cold.

While no one may have expected Ukraine to last so long against a power like Russia, it has continued to show resilience, systematically continuing its long-range strike campaign against Russian oil refineries and military targets. Ukrainian forces, for the first time in history, successfully struck a Russian submarine using an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) recently.

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The US has proposed a 28-point peace plan but the Kremlin has publicly signalled it may reject proposals that do not align with its hardline territorial demands, while Kiev is in no mood to part with its territories. With European leaders pledging nearly $100 billion in support for Ukraine over the next two years, who knows how long this one will drag on?

3. Gaza starts rebuilding amid fragile ceasefire

In 2025, Israel carried out military strikes in at least six different countries, significantly expanding the geographic scope of its regional conflicts, even as repeated fragile truces were made in Gaza.

Israel launched a major offensive against Iran over 12 days, conducted near-daily airstrikes and drone operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, launched hundreds of strikes on military sites and infrastructure in Syria, massive airstrikes on Houthi-controlled Sanaa and Hodeidah in Yemen, a direct military strike in Qatar, targeting a Hamas leadership compound in Doha, and also attacked Tunisia.

Currently, the Gaza war is in a state of yet another fragile ceasefire, under the first phase of a US-brokered peace plan. But transitioning to second phase is proving difficult due to core disputes over Hamas’s disarmament and the establishment of a transitional administration.

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While large-scale offensives have largely halted since mid-October, the territory remains gripped by a catastrophic humanitarian crisis and ongoing violations of the truce. As of late December, diplomats from the US, Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey are meeting in Miami to salvage the deal.

The recorded death toll since October 2023 has reached 70,937, with over 171,000 injured. Aid flow has improved under the current ceasefire, but 77 per cent of the population (1.6 million people) still suffers from acute hunger.

In September, 142 nations, including India, supported a resolution that included a roadmap for a two-state solution and called for an end to the war in Gaza.

2. Gen Z protest overthrows Nepal’s elected government

Yet another country in the subcontinent was overwhelmed by student-led protests in 2025. Nepal followed the Sri Lanka and Bangladesh models, with a youth-led “Gen Z revolution” toppling the elected government in September.

In one of the deadliest and most transformative political events in Nepal’s modern history, the movement was led by young citizens apparently disillusioned with corruption and economic stagnation, the immediate spark being a September 4 government ban on 26 social media platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp, ostensibly for regulatory noncompliance.

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Protests escalated into a full-scale revolution with at least 76 deaths and over 2,100 injuries by late September. Major government buildings, including the Federal Parliament Building and Singha Durbar, were set ablaze. Finally, on September 9, KP Sharma Oli resigned as the prime minister and fled the country as the uprising overwhelmed civilian governance.

On September 12, former Chief Justice Sushila Karki was sworn in as Nepal’s first female head of government to lead an interim administration. And just like Bangladesh, which has descended into chaos and violence since the ouster of Sheikh Hasina last year, Nepal continues to be ruled by a precarious interim government.

1. The year of Trump, his tariffs and tantrums

The year 2025 undoubtedly belonged to US President Donald Trump, his tariffs, his executive orders, his war against immigrants, and his attempts at stopping wars. While the entire list of controversial things Trump did through 2025 will make up a magnum opus, we’ll try to keep it as brief as possible.

Early in the year, the Trump administration implemented a sweeping and unilateral tariff regime characterized by high “reciprocal” duties and targeted penalties. A mandatory 10 per cent baseline tariff on all imports from all countries took effect on April 5. For countries with large trade deficits with the US, Trump’s administration applied higher “reciprocal” rates.

A bizarre tariff war raged briefly with China. After peaking at over 145 per cent in April, a temporary truce in May reduced rates to about 30 per cent. However, following new rare-earth export restrictions by Beijing, Trump announced a 100 per cent tariff hike in October, which was moderated to about 47 per cent later that month.

Many countries scrambled to sign a trade deal with the US to lower the tariffs, but nobody, except for China, actually put up any viable resistance to Trump’s unilateral tariff imposition.

Side by side, Trump kept signing executive orders at will (221 so far this year) and waging a war against immigrants. As his administration launched a “maximalist” mass deportation campaign, planeloads of Indian immigrants landed in India, the deportees in shackles.

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On his first day in office, Trump formally withdrew the US from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Paris Climate Agreement. He also issued an executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship for children of non-citizens, an action that faced immediate legal challenges.

He started the year with a raging bromance with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Musk, being granted unprecedented access to sensitive federal payment and data systems, sparking major cybersecurity concerns. The two fell apart halfway through the year, but by then, the USAID had been shut down, 12 per cent of the federal workforce had been slashed, and Tesla sales had dropped 13 per cent.

Trump also claimed ad nauseam to have stopped at least eight wars—including the one between India and Pakistan, which India has repeatedly denied—and he will likely step into the new year on his newfound mission to stop wars, something he says he loves doing. With his finger firmly in the Russia-Ukraine pie and now Sudan as well, the world will wait with bated breath to see if he can take the number to double figures.

Here’s hoping 2026 brings fewer shock and tragedies, and more joy and prosperity.