This is probably the time of the year when Malaysians feel happiest, with the long festive season extending from Christmas to the New Year’s Eve celebration, and culminating in Chinese New Year which falls on Feb 14, 2010.

There will be much feasting and revelry, for this period marks the change of the seasons - the end of one year and the beginning of a new one. No matter what bad things have happened in the past year, a new year always heralds in fresh opportunities for renewal and rebirth.

Many news organisations will be asking their readers to nominate the 10 most significant stories in the past year of 2009.

On the other hand, Newsweek magazine has pointed out that Jan 1, 2010 marks the end of the first decade of the new 21st millennium, and has invited readers to vote for the greatest events of the last decade. For that, my vote is for the 9/11 terrorist attack by Al-Qaeda in 2001.

As for the Malaysian domestic scene, the most significant event in the past decade must be...