Chief expectations officers
Bosses to watch, part I: Who are the bosses to watch in 2012?
Bosses to watch, part I: Who are the bosses to watch in 2012?
Will Israel and Palestine ever start talks?
Short-term vulnerability to the West’s economic woes is a symptom of a longer-term worry: a failure in many countries in Asia to progress from growth fuelled by their natural bounty and cheap labour to growth driven by higher productivity.
London will still come across as cool and cosmopolitan in 2012—but the City will have to work much harder to make anything like the handsome returns of the past
Time for India’s ageing and increasingly battered political leaders to eye the door
Don’t mistake a few high-profile IPOs for a revival of public companies, urges Adrian Wooldridge
The good news for green groups in 2012 is that they have a big global event on which to focus their energies: the "Rio +20" conference on sustainable development to be held in Rio de Janeiro in June. The less good news is that it's far from clear what this latest gathering will achieve.
In London in 2012 artists and performers will be jockeying for space alongside the world's finest athletes as the city uses the Olympics to reaffirm its eminence as an international cultural destination
The human brain is the most complex object in the known universe. In 2012, scientists will begin to map the wiring, or "connectome", of this extraordinary object, opening up a whole new way of thinking about the brain
The Museum for African Art, New York’s first purpose-built museum since the Guggenheim, will finally open its doors in Manhattan in late 2012
The successful uprisings of 2011 in north Africa were closely watched farther south on the continent. They have already spawned some local protest movements and are inspiring talk of more
Mayan calculations have led some to think the world will end on December 21st 2012. A celestial bard reports
In the coming months, voters will start to feel the pain of austerity measures and a frantic search for growth could force George Osborne to reconsider the pacing of his plans to shrink the budget deficit. 2012 will be a turbulent year
With luck 2012 will be the year cancer is cracked. Not cured. Not by a long chalk. But understood systematically in ways that will bring cures much closer
Several things will test Latin America's impressive progress in 2012. They include the slowing of the world economy, the conflicts that will arise in Venezuela and the diffuse and unpredictable sense of discontent growing among segments of the region's growing lower-middle class.
Mr Obama will spend much of 2012 trying to frame the election as a choice between him and his Republican opponent. His pitch will be something along the lines of, “I may not have got everything right, but this guy will get everything wrong.” That will make for an exceptionally negative campaign, totally different in tone from the uplifting talk of hope and change that Mr Obama peddled last time around.
Somebody is going to be proved wrong in 2012 and will lose a lot of money. Either the bullion market or the Treasury bond market is mistaken about the long-term inflationary outlook. The markets will reveal which is right.(3)
A close presidential race looms in France and voters face the choice of an inexperienced Socialist candidate, Francois Hollande or the unloved incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy
Global leaders will be preoccupied by politics at home. That augurs ill for globalisation
China’s Communist Party is gearing up for an unusually tough year. It will involve the most sweeping change of its top leadership in a decade, the appointment of a new chief executive in Hong Kong and elections in Taiwan that could produce a less mainland-friendly administration on the island.
It's hard to believe but there are still unconquered parts of the technology landscape. We look at three areas that will be fought over in 2012(2)
The law may sometimes save an ass—and give lovers of animals in Sweden less reason to celebrate(3)
Facebook's flotation will excite the tech world. Watch out for the Xbookers(7)
When tomorrow's historians write about the Great Stagnation that blighted the rich world's economies in the early 21st century, 2012 is in danger of standing out as a depressing turning-point.(7)
The wind of Arab freedom that suddenly began to billow at the beginning of 2011 will gust across the entire Arab world throughout 2012. But it will do so in patches and inconsistently.(3)
Might dustmen be the people to ask about 2012? In October The World in 2012 put three questions on the year ahead to five London dustmen as well as to businesspeople around the world.(3)
When the panic has abated the euro zone must redesign its currency(2)
How can Italy get its act together? Politicians have offered plans, Europe has issued warnings and delivered advice. But planning, warning and advising are not enough. After 18 years of Silvio Berlusconi, only dreaming will do. An Italian offers his cost-free wish-list for 2012(4)
The World in 2012 explores the issues that will shape the year ahead. With a mixture of analysis with wit, journalists from The Economist join luminaries from the worlds of politics, business and science in offering forecasts for 2012, a year that will include presidential elections in America and France, the Olympic games in London and a thriving industry in doom-mongering—not least because, according to some readers of an ancient Mayan calendar, it may be humanity's last.(5)
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KUNG HEI FAT CHOI…Cassandra is pleased to wish everyone a happy new Chinese year of the dragon More »
Cassandra’s hunch is that, whatever the result in South Carolina, Mr Romney will eventually be the nominee—but in the meantime there will be lots of entertaining exchanges between the candidates that verge on the insulting or the scandalous More »
Growth in oil supply will outpace demand, with the recovery in Libyan production and ongoing expansion in Iraqi output boosting OPEC’s share of the market. More »
Retail-sales growth of around 10% in China will be roughly double the pace of spending in India and Indonesia. More »
Every year we make our predictions about the year to come. See where we were right, and where we were wrong
Enrique Peña Nieto is incorrectly identified as the mayor of Mexico City in the World in 2012 iPad edition (though not in the print edition). He is, of course, the former governor of the state of Mexico. Our apologies.
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