That used to be one of my greatest fears growing up: my mom would get sick and then she wouldn't be able to go to work and then there is no food or money for rent.

We all know that the earlier cancer is detected the more successful treatment will be, and my cancer had spread to my ribs and that was a very fast-growing cancer.

Our military's presence in Hawaii not only plays a critical role in our national security but also in driving our state's economy and supporting thousands of jobs in the public and private sectors.

Most of us look forward to the start of a new year as a clean slate. We reflect on the past 12 months, take stock of where we are, and make new resolutions about how to improve in the coming year.

It took a generation for companies to recognise their responsibilities in terms of labour practices and another generation for them to recognise their environmental obligations.

But Australia faces additional regional and global challenges also crucial to our nation's future - climate change, questions of energy and food security, the rise of China and the rise of India. And we need a strong system of global and regional relationships and institutions to underpin stability.

Climate change, in some regions, has aggravated conflict over scarce land, and could well trigger large-scale migration in the decades ahead. And rising sea levels put at risk the very survival of all small island states. These and other implications for peace and security have implications for the United Nations itself.

The doomsayers of the 1970s were wrong about how quickly the world would run out of oil, but not about the dangers that hydrocarbon consumption posed to the global environment, especially with respect to climate change.