Farewell to a year of chaos and sufferings

The year 2016 will be remembered for many things, not least of which is how the old world order got tossed out and a new world order got established. It will be remembered for Syria constantly hogging the headlines for bombardments, destruction and the death of thousands of civilians, while the world continued to go about its business as usual.

It will be remembered for how climate change fuelled one of the longest-lasting, strongest hurricanes of its kind - Hurricane Matthew that battered the United States and Haiti - and how reckless human activities continued to perpetuate the vicious circle, with tens of millions of people in northern China breathing in polluted air.

It will be remembered for a controversial figure who won a landslide presidential victory, and it is not Donald Trump.