Each New Year brings it's own hopes and aspirations, with this in mind I have reproduced below an article that appeared on Sky News.
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The Archbishop of Canterbury has urged Britons to show a stronger response to suffering in other countries.Dr Rowan Williams said we could be "amazed by the difference we can make" if people reacted to the plight of strangers as though they were family members.
In his pre-recorded New Year Message he said: "In a world where risk and suffering are everybody's problem, the needs of our neighbours are the needs of the whole human family.
"Let's respond just as we do when our immediate family is in need or trouble.
"We may be amazed by the difference we can make."
Dr Williams described the last decade as "terrible and gruelling" - but added lessons could be learned.
"Before we shrug our shoulders and lower our expectations, let's not lose sight of one enormous lesson we can learn from the last decade," he said.
"The truth is that there are fewer and fewer problems in our world that are just local.
"Suffering and risk spread across boundaries, even that biggest of all boundaries between the rich and the poor.
"Crises don't stop at national frontiers. It's one thing that terrorism and environmental challenge and epidemic disease have taught us."
He said the Millennium Development Goals, eight key objectives about tackling poverty and disease, "summed up for a lot of us the hopes we had for a new look at our world".
