On Wednesday at midnight, we bid farewell to 2014, but not to its problems -- not to the ones it inherited from past years and not to the ones that arose on its watch. The civil war in Syria did not end in 2014 -- Syrian President Bashar Assad still rules in Damascus and the conflict has already claimed 200,000 lives. This past year was also apparently not long enough to allow for a resolution to the Iranian nuclear crisis, which threatens peace in the Middle East and around the world. 2014 was the year that Nobel Peace Prize laureate and U.S. President Barack Obama declared war on the Islamic State group, assembling a coalition of 60 countries. It was also the year that the spirits of Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev returned to the Kremlin after Russian President Vladimir Putin, perhaps influenced by the cold, organized the Winter Olympics in Sochi as well as a new cold war. Putin managed again to be the world's most dominant man when he produced the Second Crimean War, forcing NATO to look through its files for plans from the Warsaw Pact era. In 2014, there was another outbreak of the Ebola virus, this time in West Africa. And yet another deadly virus for which there is no vaccine spread through Europe -- the virus of anti-Semitism, an old, incurable disease. This past year was also the year in which European parliaments began to recognize the state of Palestine. And the year that the Kurds understood that they would have to wait for a state despite the Islamic State threat, because they still have a lot to learn from the Palestinians when it comes to public relations. It was a year in which North Korea reminded us once again that there are still rebellious children masquerading as states. And in faraway Sydney, a jihadi terrorist proved that anyone can be a threat -- even in places where you would have thought you were more likely to suffer a shark attack than a terrorist attack. It was also probably not a good idea to have been a passenger on a Malaysian airplane in 2014. The new year is underway, though it was not an easy role to succeed. We hope that this year will be a good one. How? It's not clear. It's difficult to predict what will happen in this new Gregorian calendar year. It is difficult to predict events, but it's easier to predict trends. We can assume the rivalries will only worsen, directly affecting Syria, Iran and even China. There are also variables that will, of course, have their effect -- for example, the price of oil, which has reached an almost unprecedented low in recent years. It will be interesting to see how this will affect Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United States and Iran. It will be interesting to see how the West shrinks, and specifically how NATO and the European Union will deal with the distancing of their Russian partner with its seat on the U.N. Security Council, which this past year became an opponent with conflicting interests Economic news in 2015 doesn't look too bright either. While the American economy is beginning to recover (3 percent growth), the European economy is struggling to emerge from the crisis with only 1 percent growth. This year will also be the year that the world is forced to deal with the refugee crisis in the Middle East (Syria) and Africa. One year is obviously not enough time to help millions of people. This year, the United States will reveal the candidates for the upcoming presidential elections, which will take place in November 2016. But until then, we have many more things awaiting us. 2015 doesn't look particularly promising, but the best part of Jan. 1 is that we are allowed to hope and believe and especially wish that, for our sake, this year will be a bit boring and quiet.
