Thanks, Stephan, this could be a really handy way of maintaining multiple VMs for package maintenance on different versions of SUSE, I shall have aplay with it...

Well, 2005 was an incredible year for a variety of reasons. This isn't going to be anything like a review of the year, but just some thoughts.

First off, the most important thing that happened last year was the MakePovertyHistory campaign. 2005 was a year to remember, and combined with the Live8 concerts (which revived the notion of the rock concert as demonstration) have actually made a genuine change in the world. I think it was Bono who said that this generation will be remembered for three things: the Internet; the War of Terror; and the way we treat the world's poor. In July, 250,000 people took to the streets of Edinburgh to tell the leaders of the G8 that we need to treat them better. This has always been about aid, debt and trade, and some movement happened, but we need more.

So, what have we achieved? The G8 summit signalled an extra $48bn a year in aid by 2010 (of which up to $20bn is new commitments). But this is nowhere near enough, the pressure needs to stay on the world's politicians. The G8 also agreed to cancel up to $1bn per year of debt for 18 of the world's poorest countries, but this still needs to be ratified by the IMF and World Bank, and is a fraction of the $10bn per year needed to meet the Millennium Development Goals. The area where the least has been achieved has been in the area of Trade Justice where the rich countries, including the UK, EU and USA favoured their own interests over the world's poor at the WTO Ministerial conference in December. Read full details of what was achieved in 2005.

So, what do we do in 2006? Well, maybe it's time to match talking and demonstrating about poverty with action. Oxfam have launched a campaign to get 1,000,000 people committed to act to end poverty, so sign up to say "I'm in". By no means should stop campaigning though, join the Million Faces petition to demand a global arms trade treaty, and campaign to make trade fair.

2005 has an incredible year, hopefully 2006 can be even bigger.