Tag Archives: 2010

23 March 2010

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The Affordable Care Act becomes law in the United States.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), often referred to as “Obamacare,” is a comprehensive healthcare reform law enacted in March 2010 with the primary goal of expanding health insurance coverage, improving healthcare quality, and reducing overall healthcare costs in the United States. One of its core features is the individual mandate, which initially required most Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty—though this penalty was later reduced to zero at the federal level. The ACA also established health insurance marketplaces where individuals can compare and purchase plans, often with income-based subsidies to make coverage more affordable. It prohibits insurers from denying coverage due to preexisting conditions and allows young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance plans until age 26. Additionally, it expanded Medicaid eligibility in many states, though not all states adopted this expansion. Despite ongoing political debate, the ACA significantly reduced the uninsured rate and introduced essential health benefits that all plans must cover, marking a major shift in the U.S. healthcare landscape.

5 May 2010

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Mass protests in Greece erupt in response to austerity measures imposed by the government as a result of the Greek government-debt crisis.\

[rdp-wiki-embed url=’https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-austerity_movement_in_Greece’]

8 January 2010

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Gunmen from an offshoot the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda attack a bus carrying the Togo national football team on its way to the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations, killing three.

[rdp-wiki-embed url=’https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Togo_national_football_team_attack’]

10 October 2010

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The Netherlands Antilles gets dissolved as a country.

annewz

The Netherlands Antilles was an autonomous Caribbean country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It was dissolved on 10 October 2010.

After dissolution, the “BES islands” of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba became special municipalities of the Netherlands proper, while Curaçao and Sint Maarten became constituent countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, along the lines of Aruba, which separated from the Netherlands Antilles in 1986.

he idea of the Netherlands Antilles as a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands never enjoyed the full support of all islands, and political relations between islands were often strained. Geographically, the Leeward Antilles islands of Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire, and the Leeward Islands of Saba, Sint Eustatius and Sint Maarten lie almost 1,000 kilometres apart. Culturally, the Leeward Antilles have deep connections with the South American mainland, especially Venezuela, and its population speaks a Portuguese-Dutch creole language called Papiamento; the other three islands are part of the English-speaking Caribbean.

When the new constitutional relationship between the Netherlands and its former West Indian colonies was enshrined in the Kingdom Charter of 1954, the colonial administrative division of the Netherlands Antilles, which was derived from the colony of Curaçao and Dependencies and grouped all six Caribbean islands together under one administration, was taken for granted. Despite the fact that Aruban calls for secession from the Netherlands Antilles originated in the 1930s, the governments of the Netherlands and the Netherlands Antilles did everything in their power to keep the six islands together. The Netherlands did this so as to make sure that the Netherlands Antilles could become independent as soon as possible, a call that became increasingly louder in the Netherlands after the Willemstad riots of 1969 in Curaçao. The government of the Netherlands Antilles feared that the whole Netherlands Antilles would disintegrate if one of the islands seceded; Antillean Prime Minister Juancho Evertsz once famously remarked that “six minus one equals zero”.