Connect with us

Published

on

2022 has been a tough year, in which the UK has often been hit harder than its peer countries in the G7 – the club of the world’s wealthiest democracies.

Russia’s bloody attack on Ukraine led to dramatic spikes in energy costs.

A global cost of living crisis has been driven by soaring inflation and interest rates.

In the UK, hard-pressed workers across the public sector are striking.

Unprecedented political instability in the governing Conservative Party means there have been three different prime ministers in the same year.

Meanwhile, billions of us are grappling with digital technology and connectivity. Some fear social media is rendering traditional representative democracy impossible while handing power to autocrats and unaccountable corporations. Online communication has certainly made us angrier and less tolerant of others.

The world’s population passed eight billion people this year, further increasing the existential pressure humanity is placing on the planet. Extreme weather events attributed to global warming are more frequent than ever.

Globally, the COVID pandemic has claimed more than six million lives, and it is not over either, with a million more deaths predicted in China as the Communist Party reverses its zero-COVID policy.

Taken together, these problems paint a dark picture of life in 2022, yet as we try to cope with them there are glimmers of hope. As we head into the New Year, I want to lift the gloom and rustle up some reasons to be cheerful.

Hope and unity emerge from war in Ukraine

Ukrainians celebrate Russia's withdrawal from Kherson in November
Image:
Ukrainians celebrate Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson in November

No one should minimise the horror of the war in Ukraine, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives on both sides and is still enduring the deliberate destruction by an aggressor of a modern European state. Russia’s superiority in size may still mean that Ukraine never gets back all its territory.

Still, the course of the war so far has confounded all President Vladimir Putin’s calculations and shattered the dreams of dictatorial regimes elsewhere. Russia did not conquer in a few days.

The Western democracies did not prove weak and venal. NATO is not “brain-dead”, as President Emmanuel Macron sneered a few years ago. It is stronger, with Finland and Sweden joining the military alliance.

Led by the US, UK and Poland, Western nations have given billions of dollars in military assistance while accommodating refugees. Just as importantly, the thirst of the Ukrainian people and their leaders for liberty, peace and democracy, stressed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his impassioned address to the joint session of the US Congress, reminded us all of the values which should unite us and which are worth fighting for.

Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts

For all their faults, Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss gave Ukraine solid support, even though it cut across their key post-Brexit foreign policy of turning away from Europe. British governments from now on are likely to grasp the importance of good relations with the UK’s closest and largest trading bloc, based on practical co-operation rather than ideology.

A healthy democracy

There is no going back on leaving the EU. But the UK has the chance to enter a new phase without obsessing over the question of Europe, which has dogged the Tory party at least since the 1990s, bedevilling the nation in the process.

Conservative governments no longer have an excuse to be distracted from dealing directly with more important questions such as growth, productivity, and fairness.

If the ruling party does not adapt and address these issues, opinion polls and recent local and by-elections suggest that the electorate may be ready to make a change.

Whatever the outcome at the next election, this is the sign of healthy democracy. Something the increasingly restless people of Russia, China and Iran, for example, are not able to enjoy.

In elections in the West this year, the tide appeared to be turning against populist leaders with links to Russia.

Candidates most associated with Donald Trump, who called Putin a “genius”, fared badly in November’s midterm elections. The Democrats kept control of the Senate. In France, President Macron was re-elected in April, defeating a challenge from Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally.

Game-changing future technology

High-powered lasers were used, converging on a target 'about the size of a peppercorn'
Image:
US scientists carried out the first ever nuclear fusion experiment to achieve a net energy gain

In an era of modern communications, the world should not and cannot de-globalise. The knock from the loss of Russian energy has led, however, to increased emphasis on the importance of producing our own green energy and trading with friendly and stable partners.

2022 will be a record year for commissioning renewable energy programmes, a trend which was already accelerating before the Ukraine invasion.

Other scientific breakthroughs this year point to game-changing future technologies. In the US, experimenters have for the first time achieved atomic fusion, producing more energy than was used to trigger it.

Chinese scientists claim to have found a way to produce hydrogen by electrolysing salt water. Applied on an industrial scale, this would dramatically increase the supply and cheapness of a potentially “green” fuel.

A test case in the Amazon

A climate activist protests at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt
Image:
A climate activist protests at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt

There were two important world meetings on the environment this year – COP27 in Egypt on climate change and COP15 in Canada on biodiversity.

Neither was dramatic, but both re-affirmed commitments already moving in the right direction. Crucially, at both summits, richer nations agreed to remove one of the biggest obstacles to moving faster.

They agreed, though so far more in principle than practice, to pay poorer nations for loss and damage caused by Western industrialisation and to protect vital ecosystems. Both are battles against time and the pace of degradation.

Brazil will be a test case. Deforestation in the Amazon increased catastrophically under encouragement from outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro. Lula da Silva, who takes office in January, campaigned successfully on a commitment of zero deforestation in the rain forests, wetlands, and savannah. He has re-appointed a highly committed environment minister,

Marina Silva, and upped the budget to combat destruction.

We’re living longer and healthier

68.7% of the world population have now had at least one dose of a COVID vaccine. A total of thirteen billion doses have been dispensed. The capacity of the disease to kill is receding.

An anti-malaria vaccine also became a live possibility this year. Global life expectancy went up to 73 years in 2022, albeit by 0.24%. A woman born in Britain this year can expect to live to 83 – that’s 21 years progress on the average female life span in 1926, the year Queen Elizabeth II was born.

Life expectancy increases are plateauing in the UK and US. The most dramatic advances are in poorer countries. Today, 9.2% of the world population live in what is defined as extreme poverty, compared to 36% in 1990. That is still more than a billion people. In the same period, deaths of children five and under has fallen from 34,200 each day to 14,200.

Pioneers believe that mankind is on the brink of a much greater transformation in both preventative and therapeutic medicine – thanks to the use of AI technology in mapping the human genome and proteins, and the possibilities of so-called CRISPR gene editing.

A better tech universe

Elon Musk

We are not in control of the ways online technology is changing almost every aspect of our lives. Authoritarian regimes use it to control information and their own citizens. In free societies, trolls and conspiracy theorists send untruths around the world, aided by bots from hostile nations.

Ordinary people go on social media to vilify others and to “cancel” them. The furore on both sides over Jeremy Clarkson’s casually vicious comments on Meghan Markle are just the latest example.

Meanwhile, tech companies and entrepreneurs have become absurdly wealthy.

Read more:
Where do our Christmas traditions come from?
Sky News editors give their verdicts on what might happen next

In 2022, we began to respond to this stupidity haltingly. The US government legislated against passing strategically vital tech to China. The UK government considered essential issues in the Online Safety Bill. The EU moved against US tech cartels.

FTX collapse into fraud burst the cryptocurrency bubble. Elon Musk’s humiliating mismanagement of Twitter showed the world that tech geniuses do not have all the answers. A better, less uneven, tech universe should emerge from all this, not least because the rising generations are growing up in it.

Beyond the metaverse, digging deep into the worlds of politics, health, and the environment unearths some reasons to be cheerful as this year ends.

All the same in 2023, as teachers write at the bottom of report cards, MUST DO BETTER.

Continue Reading

World

Stock markets slump for second day running after Trump announces tariffs – in worst day for indexes since COVID

Published

on

By

Stock markets slump for second day running after Trump announces tariffs - in worst day for indexes since COVID

Worldwide stock markets have plummeted for the second day running as the fallout from Donald Trump’s global tariffs continues.

While European and Asian markets suffered notable falls, American indexes were the worst hit, with Wall Street closing to a sea of red on Friday following Thursday’s rout – the worst day in US markets since the COVID-19 pandemic.

As it happened: Worst week’s trading in five years

All three of the US’s major indexes were down by more than 5% at market close; The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 5.5%, the S&P 500 was 5.97% lower, and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 5.82%.

The Nasdaq was also 22% below its record-high set in December, which indicates a bear market.

Read more: What’s a bear market?

Ever since the US president announced the tariffs on Wednesday evening, analysts estimate that around $4.9trn (£3.8trn) has been wiped off the value of the global stock market.

More on Donald Trump

Mr Trump has remained unapologetic as the markets struggle, posting in all-caps on Truth Social before the markets closed that “only the weak will fail”.

The UK’s leading stock market, the FTSE 100, also suffered its worst daily drop in more than five years, closing 4.95% down, a level not seen since March 2020.

And the Japanese exchange Nikkei 225 dropped by 2.75% at end of trading, down 20% from its recent peak in July last year.

Pic: Reuters
Image:
US indexes had the worst day of trading since the COVID-19 pandemic. Pic: Reuters

Trump holds trade deal talks – reports

It comes as a source told CNN that Mr Trump has been in discussions with Vietnamese, Indian and Israeli representatives to negotiate bespoke trade deals that could alleviate proposed tariffs on those countries before a deadline next week.

The source told the US broadcaster the talks were being held in advance of the reciprocal levies going into effect next week.

Vietnam faced one of the highest reciprocal tariffs announced by the US president this week, with 46% rates on imports. Israeli imports face a 17% rate, and Indian goods will be subject to 26% tariffs.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Do Trump’s tariffs add up?

Read more:
Markets gave Trump a clear no-confidence vote
There were no winners from Trump’s tariff gameshow

China – hit with 34% tariffs on imported goods – has also announced it will issue its own levy of the same rate on US imports.

Mr Trump said China “played it wrong” and “panicked – the one thing they cannot afford to do” in another all-caps Truth Social post earlier on Friday.

Later, on Air Force One, the US president told reporters that “the beauty” of the tariffs is that they allow for negotiations, referencing talks with Chinese company ByteDance on the sale of social media app TikTok.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Tariffs: Xi hits back at Trump

He said: “We have a situation with TikTok where China will probably say, ‘We’ll approve a deal, but will you do something on the tariffs?’

“The tariffs give us great power to negotiate. They always have.”

Continue Reading

World

Financial markets were always going to respond to Trump tariffs but they’re also battling with another problem

Published

on

By

Financial markets were always going to respond to Trump tariffs but they're also battling with another problem

Global financial markets gave a clear vote of no-confidence in President Trump’s economic policy.

The damage it will do is obvious: costs for companies will rise, hitting their earnings.

The consequences will ripple throughout the global economy, with economists now raising their expectations for a recession, not only in the US, but across the world.

Tariffs latest: FTSE 100 suffers biggest daily drop since COVID

Financial investors had been gradually re-calibrating their expectations of Donald Trump over the past few months.

Hopes that his actions may not match his rhetoric were dashed on Wednesday as he imposed sweeping tariffs on the US’ trading partners, ratcheting up protectionism to a level not seen in more than a century.

Markets were always going to respond to that but they are also battling with another problem: the lack of certainty when it comes to Trump.

More on Donald Trump

He is a capricious figure and we can only guess his next move. Will he row back? How far is he willing to negotiate and offer concessions?

Read more:
There were no winners from Trump’s tariff gameshow
Trade war sparks ‘$2.2trn’ global market sell-off

These are massive unknowns, which are piled on to uncertainty about how countries will respond.

China has already retaliated and Europe has indicated it will go further.

That will compound the problems for the global economy and undoubtedly send shivers through the markets.

Much is yet to be determined, but if there’s one thing markets hate, it’s uncertainty.

Continue Reading

World

Court confirms sacking of South Korean president who declared martial law

Published

on

By

Court confirms sacking of South Korean president who declared martial law

South Korea’s constitutional court has confirmed the dismissal of President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was impeached in December after declaring martial law.

His decision to send troops onto the streets led to the country’s worst political crisis in decades.

The court ruled to uphold the impeachment saying the conservative leader “violated his duty as commander-in-chief by mobilising troops” when he declared martial law.

The president was also said to have taken actions “beyond the powers provided in the constitution”.

Demonstrators who stayed overnight near the constitutional court wait for the start of a rally calling for the president to step down. Pic: AP
Image:
Demonstrators stayed overnight near the constitutional court. Pic: AP

Supporters and opponents of the president gathered in their thousands in central Seoul as they awaited the ruling.

The 64-year-old shocked MPs, the public and international allies in early December when he declared martial law, meaning all existing laws regarding civilians were suspended in place of military law.

Read more from Sky News:
Highs and lows of Five-Year Keir
MP tells Sky News she was targeted online by Tate brothers

More on South Korea

The Constitutional Court is under heavy police security guard ahead of the announcement of the impeachment trial. Pic: AP
Image:
The court was under heavy police security guard ahead of the announcement. Pic: AP

After suddenly declaring martial law, Mr Yoon sent hundreds of soldiers and police officers to the National Assembly.

He has argued that he sought to maintain order, but some senior military and police officers sent there have told hearings and investigators that Mr Yoon ordered them to drag out politicians to prevent an assembly vote on his decree.

His presidential powers were suspended when the opposition-dominated assembly voted to impeach him on 14 December, accusing him of rebellion.

The unanimous verdict to uphold parliament’s impeachment and remove Mr Yoon from office required the support of at least six of the court’s eight justices.

South Korea must hold a national election within two months to find a new leader.

Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, is the early favourite to become the country’s next president, according to surveys.

Continue Reading

Trending