Some events in 2004 are likely, but one misfortune is inevitable

Millions of people, most of them peasant farmers of factory workers, will die from the effects of Aids

I am bed-bound with flu. I only impart this piece of information so that you might take it into account when considering Keane's miscellany of predictions for 2004. I am grumpy and sick. I wheezed and sniffled through Christmas Day, and am typing this column in bed on the cold and rain-doused west coast of Ireland. Happily I have forgotten almost all of what I predicted last year. I did get one thing right: I predicted with absolute certainty that there would be a war with Iraq and Saddam would be overthrown. Not the calculation of a master seer, but its worth remembering how many people continued with the fiction that all Saddam needed to do was hand over his weapons of mass destruction and all would be well. Humbug. Regime change was the objective and the result.

The weapons were to provide retrospective justification for the war. Now that it looks as if there were no weapons, expect the issue to remain a matter of political controversy here, but not in the US. Whatever the Iraq Survey Group reports, it seems it will fall well short of the claims made on both sides of the Atlantic in the run-up to war. But Mr Bush will not suffer electoral damage. My first prediction for 2004 is that President George W Bush will be re-elected in November.

The guerrilla campaign in the Sunni areas of Iraq is a nuisance for the Americans and a source of anguish for many Iraqis, caught as they are between the insurgents and the often heavy-handed American military response. But it is looking less like a Vietnam or a quagmire with every passing week.

The resistance lacks the capacity to escalate to a level that would cause persistently high US casualties. With no outside support lines there is little chance this will change. Most of the country remains quiet because the Shia clerics in the south and the Kurds in the north see there is more to be gained from co-operating with the allies than from fighting. Mr Bush's biggest challenge will come in his second term, when the Shias stake their claim to a majority share of power.

When the allies' rhetoric of democracy is put to the test, the country is sure to choose an Islamic government dominated by the Shia. That is the logic of Iraq's numbers, and any attempt to wriggle or evade that reality will end in bloodshed that could make the current uprising seem like a minor gangland disturbance in south central LA.

Now that Saddam is in custody, I predict a trial in Baghdad that will fall more or less within the parameters of international legal standards. There will be scores of observers and international lawyers. What happens to Saddam after the trial is harder to predict. My hunch is that, if found guilty, he won't be executed. There may be just enough support for the view that a country already steeped in blood does not want its first major judicial exercise to end on the gallows.

While we are the subject of the pursued, here is my wildest prediction of all. The Americans will capture Osama bin Laden and bring him to trial in New York. I am not quite cynical enough to suggest that this will happen in October in the final weeks of the Presidential campaign, but you can never tell.

On the broader "war on terror" front, the chances are high that we will see major attacks on European cities or tourist resorts frequented by Western visitors. Sooner or later the bombers will, in their terms, get lucky and commit a spectacular atrocity. In Afghanistan the remnants of the Taliban and various warlords who have yet to be bought off will create continued instability, and there may well be further attempts on the lives of President Karzai and his Pakistani neighbour, Pervez Musharraf.

Next door in Iran, the catastrophic earthquake may have longer-term political effects. The ability of the government to deal effectively with the tragedy will have a bearing on its survival. The country is on an accelerating journey of change, and don't be surprised if this time next year the mullahs have lost their iron grip on power.

As for the world's remaining peace processes, I am gloomy. The Israel-Palestinian process is going nowhere. There is no process. Offstage, there are wise, intelligent people with plans and possibilities, but they are marginal figures in their own communities. In the next year I see more violence and retribution. Facing an election, George Bush is not about to take any risks for peace in the Middle East.

In Northern Ireland, the arrival of Ian Paisley's DUP as the main Unionist voice signals an era of stalemate. There will not be a return to violence by any of the main paramilitary groups, but the sectarian bitterness that fed the campaign for so long will fester and get worse. Not a challenge next year, perhaps, but in years to come.

In Africa, I wonder if Robert Mugabe can survive another year. This might be the year when Thabo Mbeki persuades him to step aside in favour of a less nationally and internationally reviled member of his own party. The plan being speculated upon in London and Pretoria is for an interim power-sharing administration that would prepare the way for properly democratic elections. Yet having seen Mugabe's demise prematurely predicted before, I am reluctant to write him off. Each year I find myself wondering how much more people can take. How much more hunger, oppression, torture and corruption? The answer, it seems, is a lot more. This is due to the power of Mr Mugabe's security establishment and the fact that when he has not smashed the opposition he has outsmarted them.

In South Africa, they will be celebrating 10 years of democracy next April. Having been present for the birth-pangs of the new nation, I think the country's new rulers have achieved some remarkable things. The country is peaceful and stable. The economy is well managed and corruption is publicly exposed. But in South Africa we are also going to see the advance of the greatest threat to the people of the developing world - Aids.

From the most remote villages in China to the jungles of Congo, the virus is multiplying and destroying. Yet for all the high-profile media campaigns, there is a fearful inertia about the international response. Like so many tragedies of the poor, it is treated by the powerful as a fit subject for charity, when what is needed is a declaration of war. For out of everything I have attempted to predict as this year closes, there is only one certainty. Millions of people, most of them peasant farmers or factory workers, will die from the effects of Aids. Because so many of the deaths happen in distant mud huts and hovels, we are never confronted with the massive, apocalyptic spectacle that would compel the powerful to action.

Yet this is not the same as saying we do not know, or that those who hold power are somehow ignorant of the scale of this tragedy. To know of such a monstrous thing and do anything less than our best is a betrayal beyond imagining. My passionate wish for 2004 is that we wake up at last.

The writer is a BBC Special Correspondent