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As the New Year dawned, California’s budget crisis eased somewhat, and the national economy looked cheery, but reports of wire-tapping, torture, corruption and the turmoil in Iraq added to a sense of national distress. Voices editor Ajay Singh asked a cross section of people on campus about the most important issues they would like to see addressed this year.

Alexia Delwich, teaching assistant, School of Public Affairs
I’d like to see all our troops come home from Iraq and more successful diplomacy with Iran. In California: a better dialogue in the legislature about using campaign contributions to boost the governor’s staff’s salaries, and I hope funding for social services will not be cut to build better highways.

Deepak Lal, professor of economics
Peace for the world – we have to stop all these terrorists from murdering us. I hope the bird flu doesn’t kill us, and the Big One doesn’t come.

Sat Avtar Khalsa, 4th-year business economics major
How could you not wish for peace on Earth? I wish
for more attention to ecological issues and equal access to the same opportunities for education.

Teshome Gabriel, professor, Theater, Film and Television
I wish for some form of democratization all over the world, but imposing democracy is not going to work – people should be allowed to experiment with various kinds of democracies. I wish for greater harmony among nations – the United Nations has to play a bigger role there. But we also need to reassess the U.N. – undemocratic countries are part of its human rights commission, and the very idea of human rights has become ineffective because the U.N. has no enforcement powers.