The beginning of a new year is always charged with expectations – for us, for those close to us, and for the wider world. Once the inevitable reckoning with the year just ended is over, we all tend to make plans, just as we resolve to start diets or sign up for the gym after the excesses of the holidays. However abundant the past year may have been, everyone hopes for at least as much ahead, leafing through the pages of the 2026 calendar in search of better days.
When the President of the Italian Republic delivered his traditional end-of-year address broadcast nationwide, he opened with a reflection on peace, something that seems increasingly elusive, more often invoked than truly practiced. The global landscape appears marked by widening scenarios of war and conflict rather than by prospects of calm continuity.
