2018 could well be a defining year for many things

THE doomsday clock has been set at two minutes to midnight, the first reset in three years.

It clearly signifies a planet in serious trouble.

President Donald Trump’s new foreign policy strategy is clearly interventionist in economic and military terms.

Regime change will be attempted in Iran, Cambodia, Venezuela and other areas of turmoil.

A nuclear confrontation with Russia cannot be ruled out. Out of the rubble of 2017, a new world order will emerge.

We begin the new year of 2018 with grave apprehension.

There is every indication that there will be a global market crash. New epidemics will emerge.

Bird flu is on the rise, as are malaria and TB.

Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes will herald an era of uncertainty.

Climatic conditions, globally, are a source of concern.

Disasters, both man-made and natural, continue to envelope our fragile planet.

A 9-magnitude earthquake could strike planet earth in 2018.

Man, supposedly the most intelligent creature of a superrich biosphere, has collectively painted himself into a corner, a problematic future of existential dimensions.

About 25 000 people die of hunger or hunger related causes every day.

This is one person every threeand-a-half seconds. It is children who die most often.

The Finnish philosopher Georg Henrik von Wright came to the conclusion that because man places competition before morality, materialism before community, economy before ecology, it will lead to man’s own annihilation.

We are in the midst of the worst economic and financial crisis since the great depression.

In its attempts at stabilising the world, mankind has tried religion, atheism, communism, capitalism, democracy, republics, dictatorships, monarchies, oligarchies, theocracies, fascism and education.

But all mankind has to show for this effort is what we have today.

Genocide, ethnic cleansing, terrorism, war, threat of war, insane distribution of wealth, abject poverty, malnutrition, starvation, executions, abortions, nuclear proliferation, pollution, alienation, social stratification, greed, arrogance, oppression and countless more examples of social cancers have placed not just mankind, but all life on this planet at the brink of extinction.

Poverty is the absence of all human rights.

The frustrations and anger generated by abject poverty cannot sustain peace in any society.

For building peace we must find ways to provide opportunities for people to live decent lives.

As we seek to strengthen the fabric of international security, there needs to be a concentrated focus on the root causes of instability, conflict and confrontation everywhere.

The danger signals are unmistakably clear.

The co-existence of a world of wealth and prosperity and a world of poverty and misery is too profound a contradiction to be ignored.

It lies at the heart of an emerging crisis.

More than one billion people are still condemned to abject poverty.

The despair and frustration which form their daily experience breed tension and trigger instability that are bound to erupt from time to time.

Whatever cloud of uncertainty may hang over the future, we must not fail to lay the foundation of a more stable and equitable world order which fosters greater hope and wider opportunities for mankind.

This year, 2018, could be the defining year.

War or peace will dominate this new year CALL me inquisitive, but I really want to know what motivates a thinking and caring person to want to spend money on the loudest and outrageously noisiest fireworks possible, while knowing the bangs will drive animals mad with fear.

I would urge you to give the SPCA or any animal shelter a call to find out how many dogs and cats have gone astray just from New Year’s “celebratory” noises.

For some reason it seemed worse this year, with some residents letting off fireworks throughout the night and into the early hours.

Is it the actual bang that excites you, or is it the explosion of the cracker that gets you all excited? Or that you don’t give a damn about anyone or anything and you just don’t have a liking for animals?