Give us this day our daily disaster? Thanks, but no thanks! For 2019, DW's Astrid Prange is hoping to read a bit more good news. Goodness knows, we need it.
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Image: Colourbox
It can feel as if there has never been as much bad news as there is right now. War, climate change, disease, famine — every day, a new disaster. The world we live in is fragile. In times of disaster, empathy and solidarity are important. Humans not only create destruction: They are also capable of overcoming it.
In October, for example, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki signed a peace treaty after 30 years of war. It was a historic accord that ended decades of bloodshed and has given the people of their countries cause for optimism.
Tentative steps have also been taken toward reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula. Three summit meetings took place between North and South Korea in 2018. The countries have agreed to withdraw all soldiers and weapons from the Joint Security Area of Panmunjom, and the North's leader, Kim Jong Un, plans to travel to South Korea for the first time in 2019.
Delicate, but enduring
The positive stories can be overlooked in the daily avalanche of of fake news, storms of outrage online and hate-filled tirades.
Amid the general Brexit chaos, it went practically unnoticed that Greece had met all of the terms of the European Union's credit program after eight long years — making it the third country to do so, after Ireland and Portugal.
The millions of people in Hungary, Poland and Romania who took to the streets in 2018 to demonstrate for democracy and against corruption also deserved more of our attention. Instead, the news focused on disillusionment with democracy and the rise of the far right.
'We can'
Good news stories have stamina. In the long term, they're what change the world. They don't vanish into the digital ether, as tweets by US President Donald Trump, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and the leader of the AfD in the Bundestag, Alice Weidel, do.
Take renewable energy, for just one example. Even if the United States has withdrawn from the Paris climate agreement agreed to be nearly 200 nations in 2015, more and more global electricity production comes from renewable energy. According to the International Energy Agency, green sources account for 25 percent of production internationally; in Germany that figure is as high as 38 percent.
Refugees are also being integrated into German society, even though the press continues to report a "refugee crisis." Ingo Kramer, the president of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations, recently said Angela Merkel was right when she told the country in 2015 that "We can do this," meaning that the nation was, in fact, capable of assisting large numbers of displaced people. More than 400,000 of the approximately 1 million refugees who have arrived to Germany in recent years now have job training or employment contracts, Kramer said.
People can overcome crises, survive diseases, protect lives, reduce poverty and make efforts to minimize damage to the environment. They represent the triumph of common sense and empathy over hate speech and conspiracy theories.
A good year
This may sound strange in view of all the ongoing wars and conflicts, but 2018 was overall a good year for most people. According to the World Bank and the World Health Organization, global poverty is decreasing, more and more households (almost 90 percent) have access to electricity, and transmissions of diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis are declining, as are the maternal and childhood mortality rates.
This has not been brought about by midnight tweets or angry demonstrations. Rather, it is the result of initiatives by people who believe in change, and who have contributed to its gradual implementation, one step at a time.
It shows us that good news was never as important as it is today. Without it, we lose our faith in the possibility of a better world; if we lose that faith, we also lose our motivation to fight for rights and peace.
Good news endures, even as new disasters great and small flit across the screens of our devices nonstop. This will remain the case in 2019. Happy New Year!
2018: The year in photos
From a dried-up river bed in Germany to Theresa May's smile under pressure to Neo-Nazi flames in the night — these photos capture wide-ranging events and emotions of 2018. Warning: Some photos contain disturbing images.
Image: Reuters/T. Mukoya
Slum ablaze
Thomas Mukoya took this photo of a major fire in Nairobi's Kijiji slum on January 28. The entire settlement burned to the ground as fire fighters ran out of water and struggled to access the area. Four residents died in the flames and more than 6,000 lost their homes.
Image: Reuters/T. Mukoya
Porn star in the limelight
American porn star Stephanie Clifford, known professionally as Stormy Daniels, goes through security at a New York court. She claims to have had a sexual affair with Donald Trump and says she received $130,000 from Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen to keep the encounter secret — though she later went ahead and spilled the beans anyway.
Image: Reuters/S. Stapleton
Neo-Nazis in the American South
Members of the National Socialist Movement (NSM) perform a Nazi ritual somewhere in the state of Georgia. The image was captured by photographer Go Nakamura, who was allowed to attend the ceremony. The NSM was part of the notorious far-right rally in Charlottesville in August 2017. American civil rights activists fear right-wing extremists and white supremacists could gain ground in the US.
Image: Reuters/G. Nakamura
Two leaders, one border
South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shake hands at the "Truce Village" of Panmunjom in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Both reiterated their willingness to cease hostilities against one another. Relations between both countries are beginning to thaw, but the North's nuclear program remains an issue.
Image: Reuters/Korea Summit Press Pool
Scene of a suicide attack
This picture was taken by Reuters photographer Omar Sobhani in Kabul, Afghanistan seconds after a suicide bomber detonated his explosive device amid a crowd of people. Sobhani was injured in the right shoulder, and eight other journalists were killed. They had flocked to area to report on a terror attack that had occurred just half an hour earlier.
Image: Reuters/O. Sobhani
World champions!
The French national football squad celebrate their manager Didier Deschamps after winning the 2018 World Cup. "Les Bleus" beat Croatia 4:2 in a thrilling final that had fans on the edge of their seats. The German side, which won the previous World Cup in 2014, were knocked out in the group phase.
Image: Reuters/K. Pfaffenbach
Germany dries up
In 2018 Germany experienced its driest summer on record, which left farmers seriously worried about their crops and caused many rivers and lakes to dry up. The Rhine River, pictured here near Düsseldorf, was partly closed to shipping traffic, causing gasoline shortages. No wonder then that "Heisszeit" (which roughly means "hot age") was voted the 2018 Word of the Year in Germany.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Gerten
Veil protest and a hug
On August 1, Ayah wore a niqab on the streets of Copenhagen to protest the Danish government's ban on face veils. Instead of arresting her for breaking the law, this police officer instead gave her a hug. Danes reacted both positively and negatively to the picture, with some lauding the policewoman while others demanded she be sacked.
Image: Reuters/A. Kelly
A smile under pressure
When it comes to the so-called family photo at EU summits, like this one in Salzburg, British Prime Minister Theresa May is the odd (wo)man out — and it's not just because most European heads of government are male. Rather, it's because May is leading the UK out of the EU. With Brexit just months away, May is increasingly finding herself facing mounting domestic criticism and a united EU bloc.
Image: Reuters/L. Niesner
Tsunami aftermath
A stuffed bunny rabbit and a bucket of clothes: Those were the only possessions this woman still had after a tsunami struck the Indonesian island of Sulawesi in September. The woman's house was wrecked, and her three children were missing. The natural disaster took the lives of more than 2,000 people, with many thousands more missing.
Image: Reuters/J. Silva
At loggerheads
A Palestinian man and Israeli soldier argue over Israel's decision to close a Palestinian school near Nablus in the West Bank. Their dispute symbolizes the wider political conflict between the Palestinian and Israeli leadership, with both sides unwilling to make concessions or compromise.
Image: Reuters/M. Torokman
Determined to reach the US
Luis Acosta holds 5-year-old Angel Jesus as they cross Suchiate River, which separates Guatemala and Mexico. They are part of the migrant caravan that set off from Central America with the aim reaching the US, no matter the obstacles in their way. US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, lambasted the migrants, called it an "invasion."
Image: Reuters/A. Latif
Trump's idea of press freedom
US President Trump is not particularly fond of journalists, either. One day after the US mid-term elections on November 6, he angrily refused to take CNN journalist Jim Acosta's questions at a White House press conference. A White House aide grabbed Acosta's microphone, and the journalist's press pass was temporarily suspended afterwards.
Image: Reuters/J. Ernst
When heaven turns to hell
In early November 2018, a major fire swept across the gorgeous Californian beach town of Malibu, which many celebrities call home. At least 85 people died and many luxury homes were burned to the ground. German television host Thomas Gottschalk, too, lost his Malibu house. But he took the bad news reasonably well, saying, "There is far greater suffering elsewhere in the world."
Image: Reuters/E. Thayer
A humanitarian catastrophe
This image shows Saleh Hassan al-Faqeh holding the hand of his 4-month-old daughter Hajar, who died of malnutrition at a hospital in Yemen's capital, Sanaa. Yemen has been mired in a bloody civil war since 2014, fueled in part by Saudi-Arabia and Iran. Statistics show that a child dies in Yemen every ten minutes.
Image: Reuters/M. al-Sayaghi
It's over...
"It was an honor." Those were the last words of Angela Merkel's final speech as the party leader of Germany's Christian Democratic Union (CDU). After 18 years in charge of the party, Merkel was replaced at the CDU helm by Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. Observers have now begun speculating if Merkel, who remains Germany's chancellor, will relinquish her government leadership before her tenure is up.
Image: picture-alliance/NurPhoto/E. Contini
Angry protests
Life for most Europeans is comparatively good. They've been spared the violent conflict and catastrophically destructive natural disasters that plague people elsewhere. And yet people in Germany, France, Belgium (pictured) and elsewhere have worries, including low wages, rising rents, falling pensions and price inflation, and have taken to the streets in anger over government policy.
