Ours is a country long familiar with bush fires. But Saturday 7 February 2009 was by far the worst in Australia’s history. With a death toll of at least 181, and still burning out of control, it already eclipses the nations' previous deadliest fires – 1983's ‘Ash Wednesday’(75 dead) and 1939's ‘Black Friday’(71 dead), and has been described as Australia’s worst natural disaster.

The recent war in Gaza has stirred up the minds and souls of many people. What is happening there, why is it happening, and why isn’t there a solution yet? I wonder: have we despaired of reaching in Palestine - Israel a just and lasting peace?

The World Economic Forum in Davos, that annual gathering of the world’s deciders in the little Swiss mountain resort, has just come to an end. There were smaller jets, fewer helicopters, less champagne and caviar. Considerably more humility, and less certainty. The only certainty that the experts can now predict is uncertainty!

President Barak Obama referred in his inaugural address to the necessary trust between government and the people. The issue of trust—in human relationships and in the global economy—has become central to the way the world should work. Powerful voices are saying so.

We Europeans need to understand the grievances and feel the humiliation that Arabs experience. And to recognise that we have caused much of it.

It is all music, dance, pomp and colours in Africa as we celebrate the victory of the first black American president in the history of USA. You have proved that Africans can make it. That black people are worthy of respect and dignity.

‘Religious belief will continue to be an important component of our shared British identity as it evolves and British society can and does draw strength from its diverse faith communities,’ Gordon Brown believes.

Splits and divisions – like divorce – are not always avoidable. Sometimes they may represent the best available option. But it is also true that, with the application of enough love and its hand-maiden humility, many breakaways could be avoided.

The usual question we ask ourselves in a crisis is, ‘Who is to blame?’ In one sense most of us are, in that we got it wrong. Very few of us saw it coming. So no one can crow and say, ‘I told you so’.

‘We need a new form of moral capitalism,’ says corporate philosopher Roger Steare.