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2021 CE

This year falls in the Twenty-first century (2001–present). The internet and smartphones spread worldwide, and the attacks of 11 September 2001 are followed by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. A global financial crisis in 2008, the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 and Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 are among the events of its first decades.

Within fifteen years

Country · South SudanSouth Sudan2011–South Sudan is the world's newest country, independent since 2011. Its people fought two long wars against Khartoum before voting to separate. Civil war broke out again in 2013; it is a presidential republic.

Country · KosovoKosovo2008–Kosovo is a landlocked Balkan country that declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Over one hundred UN member states recognize it; Serbia does not. It is a parliamentary republic under international supervision.

Country · MontenegroMontenegro2006–Montenegro is a small Balkan country on the Adriatic Sea. It was a kingdom before the First World War, then part of Yugoslavia for most of the twentieth century. It restored independence by referendum in 2006.

Country · SerbiaSerbia2006–Serbia is a landlocked Balkan country. Its medieval kingdom fell to the Ottomans in the fifteenth century; the modern state won autonomy in the nineteenth. After the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbia became fully independent again in 2006.