Hope Sighted, List Expanded

The British army is leaving Northern Ireland. That's right -- 38 years and 750 deaths after the army first moved into Northern Ireland to protect Roman Catholics from rampaging mobs of Protestants, the last 5,000 troops will be officially committed to preparing for operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and God knows where else.

This may not seem like much of a story, but it is part of a much greater trend of "impossible" stories coming true. When I was a high school student, the Berlin Wall kept East Germans in, Apartheid kept South Africans of colour down, and the British army kept angering both sides of the Catholic-Protestant divide. We never would have thought that any of these impossible situations would be peacefully resolved, but here we are in 2007.

Since these three have been resolved, I hope the world will focus on resolving the next "impossible" situations:

• finding a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian impasse
• finding a just peace in Iraq and Afghanistan
• finding (and distributing) an effective cure for HIV/AIDS
• finding (and implementing) an effective way of reducing global warming.

I know it may sound overly optimistic, but if the Berlin Wall, Apartheid, and the Ulster troubles can be resolved peacefully, anything is possible.