Current affairs

LONDON - So what does 2009 hold in store for us? As ever, the unpredictable - a terrorist atrocity or a rash decision by a national leader - will take its toll. But much of what happens tomorrow will be a result of history.

WASHINGTON, DC - Since its Islamist revolution of 1979, Iran's hardline leadership has relentlessly painted America as a racist, bloodthirsty power bent on oppressing Muslims worldwide.

It was considered a huge step towards the attainment of international justice.

NEW YORK - At a time when the headlines are filled with financial crises and violence, it is especially important to recognize the creativity of many governments in fighting poverty, disease, and hunger.

Beijing is waging economic warfare against Washington. But as is the Chinese wont, it is using traditional guerrilla asymmetrical tactics in what is more than a little fog of war.

PRINCETON - Throughout his tenure as South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki rejected the scientific consensus that AIDS is caused by a virus, HIV, and that antiretroviral drugs can save the lives of people who test positive for it.

WASHINGTON, DC - America's opening to China by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in 1971-1972 was a historic breakthrough.

NEW YORK - The latest macroeconomic news from the United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets confirms that the global economy will face a severe recession in 2009.

NEW YORK - It has become popular to suggest that when the dust settles from the global financial crisis, it may become clear that the United States-led post-war world has come to an end.

Renewable energy sources, such as wind, direct solar power, hydroelectric power, and biomass and the biofuels derived from it may be the basis for future civilization.

Never say never in an assertion of international law. One state's legal claim is another's contention for illegality, and this has proven to be little different in the context of Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence which took place on February 17 this year.

NEW YORK - In the not-so-distant future, students will be able to graduate from high school without ever touching a book. Twenty years ago, they could graduate from high school without ever using a computer.

NEW YORK - We are all Keynesians now. Even the right in the United States has joined the Keynesian camp with unbridled enthusiasm and on a scale that at one time would have been truly unimaginable.

BORDEAUX- Almost every day I run a gauntlet of beggars in this wealthy French town, mostly old men and women but sometimes rather prim middle-aged ladies.

NEW DELHI - The fallout from the terror attacks in Mumbai last week has already shaken India.

ISLAMABAD - Sitting next to a four-foot-tall water pipe, I asked the tribal leader in front of me: What does victory mean to you? He sputtered smoke, raised his bushy white eyebrows, and said, "Victory. How can you have victory here?"

We consume approximately one gram's worth of genes in every meal. This may not seem like very much, but each of our meals contains trillions of individual genes.

While Sydneysiders will venture that their harbour remains inimitable, that incomparably pagan place of beauty in the world (What of stunning beauties such as Stockholm? Or dashing, daring San Francisco Bay?), one of the primary reasons for its fame was due to a Dane.

In looking back at the now-completed presidential contest, it is striking to note the degree to which Arabs, Muslims, and Islam itself, were factored into the race.