Easy News: March 2021

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon is stepping down as Chief Executive. The Chief Executive is the Big Boss of the whole company. He created Amazon back in 1994.

Bezos will leave his current job in the summer of 2021 but keep working at Amazon in a smaller role so he can work on other projects outside of Amazon.

He will be replaced by Andy Jassy, who has worked for Amazon since 1997.

Mr. Bezos started Amazon as an online book store based in his garage. Over the last 30 years Amazon has gone on to sell lots of other things as well, and has lots of warehouses all around the world.

He has earned approximately $200 Billion Dollars from being the boss of Amazon. He believes that the company has been so successful because of the technology they have developed, like the Kindle and Alexa.

In his new job at Amazon, Mr. Bezos will still work on Amazon projects, but will also have time for other projects. Like other billionaires Bill Gates and Elon Musk, Bezos is working on ways to try and do something about climate change.

In 2020 Amazon made $386bn (£283bn) in sales which is nearly double the amount of money that Amazon made in 2019.

As Amazon has grown, Jeff Bezos has become better known. Lots of people feel that Amazon does not pay enough money to the Government in taxes and want it to pay more.

Some people also feel that the company has an unfair advantage over smaller and newer businesses because they cannot compete with the size of Amazon.

Amazon also has been criticised for treating some of its delivery drivers and the people who work in its warehouses badly. By not giving them enough breaks, or paying them enough money.

The government of Myanmar, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, was removed in a coup by Myanmar's military. A coup is when a government is removed by force.

Myanmar is a country in South East Asia. It is next to India, China, and Thailand. In the UK, it used to be known as Burma. The military previously led the country for many years.

Aung San Suu Kyi opposed the military for a long time. Often they put her under house arrest. House arrest is when you cannot leave your house. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

In 2016, she and her party – the National League for Democracy - won the general election there. She led the country since then but the military remained very important and powerful.

Before the coup, Myanmar had another general election. Aung San Suu Kyi and her party won again. The military had wanted another party to win instead.

On the 1st February 2021 the military arrested many members of the National League for Democracy. They said they had taken control of the country for one year.

The military say the election was fraudulent. This means they say people were not honest when counting the votes. People who check elections do not think this is true.

There have been protests by the people of Myanmar. They are angry at the military for not accepting the results of the election that they voted in.

The military are trying to stop the protests by force. They have used water cannons on the protestors, and have turned off the internet to stop people planning more protests.

Other countries are very angry with the military of Myanmar. They do not like that the military are using force to ignore the results of the election.

Joe Biden, The President of the United States of America has said he may impose sanctions on Myanmar. This means America would stop or change how it trades with Myanmar.

People do not know what will happen after this, but many are hoping that the military will change their mind and stop.

January 6, 2021, supporters of Donald Trump rioted inside The Capitol. This is a building in Washington where the United States Congress meets.

The United States Congress is like the UK’s Parliament in Westminster. It is where members of Congress make laws in the USA.

Offices and equipment were damaged and items were stolen by some of the rioters. Many people were injured and 1 police officer and 4 of the rioters died.

The rioters believed that the result of the 2020 US Presidential Election was wrong and that Donald Trump won the election, and it had been stolen from him. They did not trust that the votes had been counted fairly.

There was no proof of this and Joe Biden won the election. He became President on January 17th, 2020.

Many people, including lots of the Democratic Party believe that Donald Trump caused the rioting to happen with things that he said and tweeted.

Police eventually managed to stop the rioters, but lots of damage had already been caused.

Donald Trump was impeached at the Senate. Impeachment is a trial against someone who has a position in the Government. In this case he was questioned about what caused the rioting. Donald Trump was also impeached before, in December 2019.

The Senate is similar to The House of Lords in the UK Parliament.

67 votes were needed to impeach Trump, but only 57 of the 100 senators voted for impeachment, so he was found not guilty.

This means that Donald Trump is allowed to run again for President in 2024 if he wants to and if the Republican Party nominate him.

Donald Trump said that the impeachment trial was “the greatest witch hunt in history”. This means he thinks he did nothing wrong and people were wrong to blame him for the riots.

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