Current Events By: Leah Gill

Tunisia In what became known as the Jasmine Revolution, a sudden and explosive wave of street protests ousted the authoritarian president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who had ruled with an iron hand for 23 years. In January 2011, it took center stage as the launching pad of the wave of revolt that swept through the Arab world and beyond.

Algeria In May 2012, the government announced that the ruling party had strengthened its rule in parliamentary elections, a result that met with widespread skepticism. In fact, most Algerians — anywhere from 60 percent to 80 percent — boycotted the vote.

Egypt Its revolution in February 2011 was the capstone event of the Arab Spring, inspiring demonstrators in Libya, Syria and elsewhere. In June 2012, a series of events threw the country’s troubled transition to democracy deeper into confusion as Egypt’s two most powerful forces — the military establishment and the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group — moved toward a showdown.

Libya On Sept. 11, 2012, heavily armed Islamist militants stormed and burned the American Consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi, killing the United States ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, and three others: Sean Smith, a Foreign Service officer, and Tyrone S. Woods and Glen A. Doherty.

Yemen Yemen is a poor, deeply divided country that has been in turmoil since January 2011, when protesters inspired by the Arab Spring took to the streets in a violent uprising against the autocratic rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh — at a cost of hundreds of deaths and rising chaos.

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia has been a central pillar of the Arab world for decades. Its vast oil supplies, close ties to the United States and cash-heavy diplomacy assured its position from the years of the cold war until a wave of unrest broke in Tunisia in January 2011 and swept across the region.

Jordan Hit in late January 2011 by the waves of unrest that spread across the Arab world in the wake of the revolution in Tunisia. Protests were led by the Islamic Action Front, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, but included leftists and trade unions. Demonstrators protested economic hardship and demanded the right to elect the prime minister

Syria The wave of Arab unrest that began with the Tunisian revolution reached Syria on March 15, 2011, when residents of a small southern city took to the streets to protest the torture of students who had put up anti-government graffiti. The government responded with heavy-handed force, and demonstrations quickly spread across much of the country. By the fall of 2012, the country was months into a full-blown civil war.