- published: 18 Mar 2016
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The 2010s, pronounced "twenty-tens" or "two thousand (and) tens", is the current decade which began on January 1, 2010 and will end on December 31, 2019. The decade is also called the second decade of the 21st century and 3rd millennium.
The decade began amidst a global financial crisis that started in the late 2000s, after approximately two and one half decades of prosperity, economic growth as well as income inequality, and increased globalization. In particular, the ongoing Eurozone debt crisis, which stemmed from these economic problems, first became pronounced in May 2010 and continues to threaten the possibility of a global recovery. Other economic issues such as inflation, and an increase in commodity prices, sparked immense unrest in many lower-income countries. In some countries, particularly Arabic ones, this unrest eventually evolved into socio-economic crises which set off numerous revolutions, such as in Kyrgyzstan and Tunisia in 2010, and Libya, Syria, and Egypt in 2011 and 2012. This widespread recent phenomenon is now known as the Arab Spring, and it still continues, as of June 2012.