AT this time of the year most newspapers and other aspects of the media do a year-end review and this commentary will follow suit.

I will give an overview of some of the news items that attracted my attention during the year 2007.

Beginning with the United States in a year that the upcoming presidential elections in November of this year, Americans will choose their next president. This year the focus is whether we will see the election of the first African/American - Sen. Barrack Obama - or the first woman president - Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Of course the sceptics - and I include myself among them - reason that the America of today will never elect a black man as its president. If the political gender and racial mould is going to be broken in this regard, then America will elect a woman - a white woman at that.

You have to give it to Obama - he is giving it a good shot. But in order to attract white support he has purposely downplayed his ethnicity. One of his most frequent statements during this campaign is that America is neither black or white - they are simply all Americans.

Of course, potential white supporters like this kind of talk as it avoids the real issue of race, but for Obama the path is a double-edged sword in that, by playing down his ethnicity, he has lost some black political support. Some of it has gone to the Clinton campaign - no doubt in part because her husband - former President Bill Clinton - made a real connection with the black community during his two terms in office. In fact, in America's black community, he is referred to as America's first black President.

Obama has enlisted the aid of popular TV show host Oprah Winfrey to boost his campaign. On the other hand, as a reflection of African/American divided political loyalties, basketball great Magic Johnson and his wife Cookie recently held a major fundraising event for Hillary.

There is some talk that if Hillary gets the Democratic nomination to run for the presidency then a Hillary/Obama ticket - with the latter as Vice-President - might not sound so bad. This scenario may also assuage African/Americans who may feel slighted by the fact Obama has played down his race. He certainly would need full black support if he hopes to have any chance for the Democratic nominee for President. Then too, white America may get used to a black man being in such a high position and maybe Obama will get his turn once a potential Hillary presidency comes to an end.

Elsewhere on the American scene, gun culture remains alive and well. Perhaps this is a poor choice of words, for, as a result of this gun culture, many have been maimed and shot to death. In 2007, 32 students and teachers and the Virginia Tech campus were massacred on what should be one of the safest places in the US - a school environment. Sadly, this is not the case, as many of these violent outbreaks occur on the grounds of school. But not however, exclusively - towards the end of last year another shooting took place in a mall, again claiming many innocent victims.

America has often claimed that part of its mission is to disarm violent countries around the world, especially if they are thinking of acquiring nuclear weapons. One wonders who will disarm America and help it escape it's own violent culture.

O.J. Simpson was in the news again last year. This time he was accused of armed robbery - ironically while allegedly attempting to recover some of his own sports mementos. I have always considered that O.J. has never really gotten over the fact that he was once America's sporting golden boy. Of course, that was before he beat the murder raps that held America's attention for so long one long, hot summer. He should be reminded, especially as a black celebrity in America, that white America gives and white America takes away.

Jamaica's first woman Prime Minister - Portia Simpson-Miller - hardly had time to get her feet under the desk before losing an election to Bruce Golding. That is the nature of politics, as Bermuda well knows - in as leader one day, out the next.

With regard to Cuba's longtime leader Fidel Castro, the question is, is he in or is he out? No doubt we will get a real answer some time this year.

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is definitely in at the moment - despite losing a referendum that would have seen him become President for life.

Turning to Africa, we see a changing of the guard at the top level of the ruling African National Congress, with Jacob Zuma replacing Thabo Mbeki. Zuma may be popular at the grass roots level, but he still has legal problems with charges of corruption hanging over his head.

Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown allowed the presence of Robert Mugabe at a recent European/African meeting in Lisbon to keep him away. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. This was an opportunity missed where he could have told Mugabe to his face about his misrule in Zimbabwe. Instead, German Chancellor Angela Merkel did the honours in a display of girl power.

Ethiopia and Eritrea threaten to go to war again over the lack of an agreement over their international border. This is a classic highland/lowland conflict. You can't tell the two nations apart - they look alike and have almost the same culture.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia's intervention in its neighbour, Somalia, looks more and more like a quagmire and Darfur continues to bleed and suffer all because Africa is not yet strong enough to impose its own peace on the African continent.

Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto was assassinated just days before the end of the year, another victim of al Qaeda as a supporter of America's war on terrorism. Or was she a victim of one of her many internal political enemies? That question too is likely to be answered this year.

Bermuda endures another shooting death of a young black Bermudian male and the question is once again asked - why?

Most opinion pieces have a Person of the Year and the person I chose for this commentary is the anonymous gunmen who snuff out the lives of young black Bermudian men. I have not given this as an honour or as a glorification of the actions of these murderers. It is an appeal to Bermudian society - my country - to drop the fig-leaf and all its pretense and accept what we have become - and that perhaps this year we will do something about it.