What we know about 2007 on the last day of the year:
The year ended with the death of Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister of Pakistan, who returned to the country in October to bring back democracy. Her 19-year-old son has stepped forward to take her place.
Pakistan has been ruled by the army chief, General Musharraf, since 1999. But now the country is at the edge of civil war. After the fall of the Red Mosque in July, a holy war against the government has broken out in the mountains of the north-west, where Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding.
Pakistan has the bomb, but it seems the Americans have made sure it will not fall into the wrong hands in case Musharraf falls.
In neighbouring Afghanistan the Taliban has been making a comeback in the south.
In Iraq the strength of Al Qaeda has fallen by three fourths. Anbar province has turned against it. America increased its troop levels in the Baghdad Surge in the first half of the year. That seems to have brought greater peace to the country. The British were able to turn over Basra, ending its four years of military rule in the south.
Iraq is still a mess, but now it is out of the newspaper headlines in America, giving the Republicans party a chance at winning the 2008 election for president.
Iran, despite Western attempts to stop it, went forward in processing uranium. Iran said it was only interested in building power plants. America said it was secretly building an atom bomb. That turned out to be false according to its very own intelligence – something Russia and the United Nations had been saying for years.
The war in Darfur in Sudan went on, pulling in the neighbouring countries of Chad and the Central African Republic. The West has been slow to help, slowed in part by China, which needs Sudan’s oil.
China has been busily getting ready for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Despite that the air there is still dirty.
Sarkozy became president of France. He wants to turn France to the right, just as Thatcher did in Britain and Reagan in America in the 1980s. He has already faced down his first labour strike.
The big New York banks on Wall Street have lost billions in mortgages made to those with bad credit histories.
Global warming became a top issue and is now accepted by most as a fact of science: that the earth is becoming dangerously warm because of all the oil and coal that man is burning. New word: carbon footporint.
The iPhone came out in America. It is a pocket computer that can make telephone calls.
Google continued to build a universal library on the Internet.
Top song worldwide: “Umbrella” by Rihanna
Nobel Prize for Literature: Doris Lessing
Academy Award for Best Picture: we will know on February 24th 2008
See also:
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