2023, which leaves in a few hours, was full with unprecedented temperatures, the consolidation of artificial intelligence and two wars in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine making for a strange backdrop. So, roughly eight billion people prepare to welcome the new year with hope for something better, but also uncertainty about what the future holds.
In Sydney, the self-proclaimed “New Year's Eve Capital of the World”, more than a million people are expected to celebrate on the coast of the city, despite the unusually cold and wet weather.
Eight tonnes of fireworks will be used to brilliantly celebrate 2024 which, for half the world's population, will be a crucial election year. It will also be the year of the Olympic Games, which will be held this summer in Paris.
In 2023, the world experienced “Barbie Mania”, began to familiarize themselves with tools Artificial Intelligence and last year the first whole eye transplant took place.
India became the country with the largest population, dethroning China. This was also the first country to land a spacecraft in the unexplored region of the Moon's South Pole.
The outgoing year was also the year in which the average global surface temperature reached record highs, with climate disasters affecting numerous regions of the planet from Pakistan to the Horn of Africa to the Amazon basin.
But above all, 2023 will be marked by the unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 – and by Israel's merciless reprisals.
Hopes in the ruins of wars
The United Nations estimates that almost two million of its inhabitants Gaza Strip – around 85% of the population – have been displaced since the start of the war.
In the deserted Gaza City, there are few places left to celebrate the New Year.
“It was a dark year full of tragedies”says Abed Akawi, who fled the city with his wife and three children.
The 37-year-old man, who now lives in a UN camp in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, lost his brother but says he has hope for 2024. “With the help of Allah, this war will end, the new year will be better and we will be able to go back to our homes and rebuild them or we will just live in a tent in the ruins”he told AFP.
In Ukrainewhere the Russian invasion is approaching its second anniversary, trial and hope prevail despite the new wave of Russian attacks.
“Win! We are waiting for it and we believe that Ukraine will win”says Tetiana Shostka as sirens sound warning of an airstrike in Kiev. “We will get what we want when Ukraine is freed by driving Russia out”said the 42-year-old.
Critical elections
Some in Vladimir Putin's Russia are tired of war. “In the new year, I would like the war to end, a new president and a return to normal life”says Zoya Karpona, a 55-year-old set designer living in Moscow.
Putin, its longest-serving leader of Russia after Joseph Stalin, he will again be a presidential candidate in the March elections. Few believe that the election is completely free and fair, and few expect the Russian president to lose the election.
In addition to the Russian elections, more than four billion people in the world will be called to the polls, especially in the United Kingdom, in the European elections in the European Union, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, Venezuela and of course the USAwhere Democrat Joe Biden, 81, and Republican Donald Trump, 77, are expected to face off again next November.
Many of the supporters of the current US president are concerned about his advanced age and the consequences of a new presidential term.
As for Trump, who he faces numerous charges and at least three of his trials are expected to begin in 2024 before the presidential electionnothing prevents him from doing his election campaign.
Source: News Beast
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