Looking forward/Looking back

Nostradamus’s Predictions for 2025:
An end of war, asteroid collision and more for the coming year

Lessons from the elections held in 70 countries in 2024
(AP) — When voters around the globe had their say in 2024, their message was often: “You’re fired.”
Some 70 countries that are home to half the world’s population held elections this year, and in many incumbents were punished. From India and the United States to Japan, France and Britain, voters tired of economic disruption and global instability rejected sitting governments — and sometimes turned to disruptive outsiders.
The rocky democratic landscape just seemed to get bumpier as a dramatic year careened toward its end, with mass protests in Mozambique and Georgia, an election annulled in Romania and an attempt to impose martial law in South Korea.

Inflation, elections and war dominated 2024
By Simon Robinson
Inflation-driven anti-incumbent sentiment reshapes global political landscape
Trump’s return raises concerns abroad, especially over Ukraine
Tech firms dominate S&P 500 market cap as world adapts to AI
(Reuters) Inflation dropped in most economies around the world in 2024, but voters didn’t care.
Angered by the hefty ramp-up in prices for everything from eggs to energy over the past few years, they punished incumbent parties at almost every opportunity. The pain of inflation lingers, and ruling parties took the blame in election after election.
In the United States, higher costs helped Trump win a second term as president four years after he was voted out of the White House and then falsely claimed election fraud.
The inflation-driven anti-incumbent sentiment also ushered in new governments in Britain and Botswana, Portugal and Panama. South Korean voters put the opposition into power in its parliament, a check on President Yoon Suk Yeol. In early December, the president imposed martial law, a move the National Assembly quickly reversed. Elections also shook up France and Germany, and Japan and India.

‘Bad things can happen’: how will the world adjust to the Trump presidency?
Before he has taken a single executive decision, countries around the world are positioning themselves for his impact

Gwynne Dyer: Welcome to ‘Uncharted Territory’
New Year is when we do the accounts for the year, and the bad news always gets top billing: how many wars are going on, how big were the natural disasters, etc.? Climate change now has its own slot in this annual accounting, and here is what the climate pundits will say.
… Only if you can “believe six impossible things before breakfast,” like the White Queen in ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’, could you believe that we can voluntarily shift from growing our global emissions by about 1% a year to slashing them by 7% a year in the next five years, which is the minimum change needed to avoid a catastrophe.
Human beings in large numbers simply cannot react that fast even when the catastrophes begin. The Philippines were hit by six cyclones (hurricanes) in one month last autumn – utterly unprecedented – and still there’s no big public demand there for a rapid switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources.
The second thing you will hear (if your media sources are reality-based) is that there was a big, unexplained leap in the warming in June 2023. The average global temperature jumped by three-tenths of a degree in one month. That is the amount had been predicted to occur over the next ten years.

Huge election year worldwide sees weakening commitment to act on climate crisis
Among sweeping right-wing electoral victories across the globe, the ‘big loser of the elections has been climate’
An unprecedented year of elections around the world has underscored a sobering trend – in many countries the commitment to act on the climate crisis has either stalled or is eroding, even as disasters and record temperatures continue to mount.
…there have been major wins for Donald Trump, the US president-elect who calls the climate crisis “a big hoax”; the climate-skeptic right in European Union elections; and Vladimir Putin, who won another term and has endured sanctions to maintain Russia’s robust oil and gas exports.
Droughts, floods, wildfires: 2024 natural disasters in pictures
An array of climate emergencies has killed, injured and displaced thousands across the globe this year.
People worldwide have faced an array of climate emergencies, ranging from prolonged droughts and wildfires to extreme rainfall and devastating floods, in 2024.
Southeast Asia and South China experienced the destructive force of Typhoon Yagi, a severe tropical storm that caused the most devastation in Vietnam, resulting in 325 deaths, 24 people reported missing, and damage to more than 320,000 structures.
In the United States, California battled wildfires while Tropical Storm Helene struck the southeastern region, inflicting catastrophic damage and killing at least 234 people.
In South America, severe drought caused Brazil’s Madeira River to dry up, while wildfires ravaged parts of Bolivia and Ecuador battled a bushfire close to its capital.
Europe also faced significant challenges. Portugal struggled with widespread wildfires, and towards the end of September, Storm Boris brought heavy rainfall and flooding to Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
While September stood out for its intensity, the entire year has set new records for the scale and impact of climate disasters globally.

9 Political Issues That Bit the Dust This Year
including traditional canvassing, the KENNEDY mystique, campaigning on abortion and politics on “SNL, [t]his was a year of firsts — but also a year of lasts.
From the way campaigns are run, to how pop culture shapes politics, to the very foundation of American law…events of 2024 have meant the end — or growing irrelevance — of key aspects of our political ecosystem.

Ian Bremmer Your questions, answered
Can you name one positive thing you think will happen in 2025?
In 2025, I’m confident that the world will be as interconnected as ever, even if some linkages are in flux. Countries around the world will continue to engage economically with everyone they can. Plus, the supply of people who want to engage with digital content from around the world will continue to grow. The cat’s out of the bag with globalization, so to speak. I know that word can be politically charged, but globalization has been a net positive to humanity. Between 1981 and 2015, the number of people living on less than $1.90 a day dropped from 1.81 billion to around 700 million. That global economic growth wouldn’t have happened without increased trade brought on by globalization. Fragmented politics won’t change that economic reality.

Adam Roberts at The Economist Here are my eight personal predictions for how the world will look at the end of 2025.
1. First, the easiest of predictions: Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister since 2015, is toppled early in 2025 after a no-confidence vote. After the subsequent election, the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, emerges as the new PM. The new leader still struggles to handle Donald Trump.
2. Friedrich Merz, of the Christian Democrats, is Germany’s chancellor. He won an election on February 23rd, by defeating the incumbent Olaf Scholz and the Social Democrats. Elon Musk’s endorsement of the hard-right AfD is seen as a factor in their popularity. Germany’s economic woes drag on.
3. Ukraine, after being forced into armistice talks with Russia, is still getting economic and military support from the West. Volodymyr Zelensky has agreed to call a general election. The war is stalled, not over.
4. Donald Trump’s second term as president has so far felt less frantic than the first, perhaps because people spend less time on social media than before. Mr Trump is having to battle with slowing economic growth, a stockmarket that has lost its oomph, and the fact that his promised deportations of illegal immigrants have happened only sporadically. His 80th birthday looms and commentary about his age is rising.
5. Emmanuel Macron surprises everyone by saying that he plans to stand down early as president of France, ahead of the election in 2027. Mr Musk endorses Marine Le Pen.
6. The popularity of Sir Keir Starmer reaches a historic low for any prime minister in Britain. Polls show that Nigel Farage has emerged as the most popular political figure and his Reform Party looks better organised than ever.
7. Javier Milei, in Argentina, will be celebrating the improved economic conditions in his country, after a broadly successful year in which his radical reforms have managed to spur growth.
8. Finally, as with last year, I’d naturally expect Xi Jinping to remain in power in China, but I also expect China’s economy to struggle again in 2025.

12 Tech Predictions For 2025 That Will Shape Our Future
(Forbes) The year ahead looks set to become one of tremendous change. As a consequence of progress in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology, and space exploration, economies will see constant transformation. These innovations will create significant opportunities and threats. In 2025, we will need to focus on welcoming amazing innovation and progress while keeping these advancements on the rails of ethical implementation and use.
Advancements in technology will shape economic growth. There will be an apparent dichotomy between countries that participate in the innovative economy and those that lack the ability or infrastructure to do so. The consequences of the growth of automation and trends toward the decarbonization of industries will act as catalysts for changes in the distribution of power in the international arena. Those failing to do so will lag behind, while others, such as the BRICS group, will continue to seek a shift from the U.S. dollar.

AI is becoming ingrained in businesses across industries. Where is it going in 2025?
As artificial intelligence continues to grow at a rapid pace, more and more businesses are grappling with how to adapt both quickly and responsibly.
Dan Priest is the new Chief AI Officer at PwC, one of the world’s largest consulting firms, where he works with companies across industries as they adopt this burgeoning technology both into their day-to-day operations and future business models. He says 2024 was all about proving what AI brings to the table — and expects 2025 will shift more into scaling it.

10 elections to watch in 2025
This time last year, we had you buckle up for the world’s most intense year of democracy in action, with more than 65 countries holding elections involving at least 4.2 billion people — roughly half of the world’s adult population. As we now know, many of those voters turned against incumbents in 2024 — from the United Kingdom and the United States to Botswana, Japan, and South Korea, just to name a handful.
…we’re spotlighting the 10 most consequential elections of 2025. While it will be a less dramatic year for democracy compared to 2024, there are important themes to track as many of the countries struggle amid increasing political polarization, anti-establishment sentiment, and economic challenges.
… Belarus, Germany, Australia, The Philippines, Bolivia, Argentina, Czech Republic, Tanzania, Canada, and Chile.

The Democrats and Republicans Best Positioned — Right Now — for 2028
(Politico) Trump cannot run for a third term under the Constitution. Which means the presidential primaries in both parties will be truly wide-open contests — with no incumbent president, former president or quasi-anointed front runner largely clearing either field — for the first time since 2008.
And whether you like it or not, the 2028 presidential primary is effectively underway, with ambitious politicians in both parties already jockeying for advantage.

Jake Sullivan on the biggest threats to US national security in 2025
Despite major differences between the two administrations, Sullivan says he’s seen “more alignment” with his successor Mike Waltz than he expected and that they agree on “big ticket items” like making sure US adversaries don’t take advantage of the US during the presidential transition. Reflecting on his time and office and how the global threat environment has changed, Sullivan digs into risks and opportunities in Syria, the US-Israel relationship, China’s global ambitions, and Putin’s miscalculations in Ukraine.

Europe, on the brink, faces a pileup of threats for 2025
Europe, its politics fragmented and economies flagging, is increasingly vulnerable to Russia’s predations
Europe faces the new year amid a grim pileup of threats, its voters angry, its traditional political parties fragmented, its major economies stagnant or sluggish, its birth rates plummeting, and its eastern flank engulfed by a calamitous war.
The continent’s liberal democracies are under severe strain, not least from populist right-wing movements.
Seven of the European Union’s 27 member states are now governed fully or in part by extreme parties. More might follow as frustration mounts, especially among 20-something voters, at governments’ failure to limit immigration and promote jobs, housing and better living standards.

Welcome to 2034-what the world could look like in ten years
Picture a world with competing power centers, an unstable Russia stumbling into its post-Putin era, a nuclear-armed Iran emerging in the midst of an unruly nuclear age, and a United Nations incapable of carrying out its core functions—including convening the world’s countries to tackle problems, such as climate change, that no one state can solve and that pose a grave threat to global security and prosperity.
That’s just a glimpse into the future that leading global strategists and foresight practitioners forecast when the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security surveyed them in November on how they expect the world to change over the next ten years.
If this sketch leaves you gloomy, you’re in good company: Sixty percent of the experts who participated in our annual Global Foresight survey think the world will be worse off a decade hence. But despite the pessimism about the overall direction of global affairs that many expressed, their responses also turned up cause for hope when we asked more specific questions regarding geopolitics, the environment, disruptive technology, the global economy, and other domains.

Latin America and the Caribbean in 2025: Ten predictions to shape the year ahead
By Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center
(Atlantic Council) 2024 was a transformative year for Latin America and the Caribbean. Elections brought some surprises, but the region also bucked the global trend as continuity was the theme in the Dominican Republic and Mexico, where Claudia Sheinbaum made history as its first female president. Further south, Brazil played a pivotal role as the host of the Group of Twenty and Peru welcomed the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit, asserting Latin America’s leadership on the global stage.

Always look on the bright side of life — why 2025 might be better
5 totally not tongue-in-cheek reasons to be optimistic about the year ahead.
There were people who insisted the internet would fail and television would just never catch on. And even the almost-foolproof U.S. election forecaster Allan Lichtman got it wrong this year with his firm prediction of Kamala Harris beating Donald Trump. And, of course, Black Swan events can upend everything, like pandemics.
Nonetheless and while acknowledging that making predictions is a fool’s game, here are five — not mutually exclusive — scenarios to cheer you up as the clock ticks down on 2024.
Stopping wars
Insurrectionist-in-chief Donald Trump may cut an odd figure as a peacemaker, but he pledged on the campaign trail that he would “stop the wars” raging around the world, including in the Middle East and Ukraine.
And he might just do so.
Certainly, Volodymyr Zelenskyy suspects that may be the case, saying Russia’s war in Ukraine will end “faster” when Trump takes over. Maybe the Ukrainian president was just putting on a brave face and trying to stay on the right side of the American leader by signaling his willingness to engage in negotiations. Saying no would likely go down badly with the former reality show host, best to let Vladimir Putin be the difficult one.
In some European quarters, there’s secret relief that Trump might bring the war to a close. And some think he’s more likely to get a better deal from Moscow than a President Kamala Harris. Despite Western promises to stick with Ukraine for as long as it takes, there’s increasing realization that the war is unwinnable if the aim is for Kyiv to recover all the territory stolen by Russia. Ukraine’s Western allies never really took into account what it would take.
In the Middle East, Israel’s ultranationalists and Jewish supremacists have been celebrating Trump’s reelection, and his picks for his foreign policy and national security officials have only added to their good cheer. As far as they see it, Trump will give them whatever they want. Eretz Yisrael here we come. After all, his nominee to be the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has dismissed the very idea of there being a people called Palestinians — he thinks they should be shunted off to another country.
Nonetheless, Trump didn’t give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu what he wanted last time he was in the Oval Office — an endorsement of the annexation of the West Bank or at least of the Israeli settlements. And some close to the Trump inner circle doubt Bibi will be given a blank check this time either. Netanyahu has been assiduously courting Trump, trying to make up for the faux pas of congratulating Joe Biden on his 2020 election win while Trump was disputing the count and claiming the election was stolen. “Bibi could have stayed quiet,” an irritated Trump later fulminated.
If the Israeli leader expects an easy win, “I think he’s going to be disappointed, and he’s going to have to recalibrate his approach because Trump wants to end the fighting in the Middle East almost as much as he does in Ukraine,” said a Republican fixer. So here’s a prediction: The Palestinians get a sliver of the West Bank and a wrecked Gaza for their state and Ukraine loses 20 percent of its land but that’s better than nothing or more war.

For the Middle East, 2025 Will Be About the Shifting Balance of Power
(World Politics Review) Making predictions about the Middle East can be an exercise in futility. Just weeks before his ouster, for example, few if any analysts had “Assad flees Syria” on their radar. The same can be said for Hamas’ brutal assault on Israel in 2023, which shocked the region and upended its political dynamics. Could another “black swan” event emerge in 2025? At the very least, it seems to be possible, as the Middle East is full of brittle regimes, festering conflicts and ambitious external actors.
After the attack of Oct. 7, 2023, exposed Israel’s vulnerabilities, many predicted an irrepressible rise and strengthening of the “axis of resistance,” as the network of Iranian-backed allies fighting Israel and Western-aligned partners is known. A year later, the script has flipped, with Israel ascendant through its relentless use of military force in Gaza, Lebanon and beyond. The fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was the most stunning example of how the tables have turned, eroding Iranian—and Russian—power.
…Iran’s losses do not always amount to Washington’s gains. For another, the pendulum can shift again—and quickly. Those hoping for clarity in the emerging regional order are likely to be disappointed.
Nonetheless, several certainties remain. One is the continued expansion of Chinese economic engagement in the region driven by the sheer demand of its energy needs, which are unlikely to shift drastically in 2025. The other certainty is that Washington’s expansive military ties with regional partners will continue….
These two certainties combine to reinforce a third trend: regional resistance to choosing sides between the United States and China. Washington’s regional partners will continue hedging and adopting multi-alignment strategies as they focus on priorities at home. Regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia, in particular, is likely to invest more in its domestic agenda than in grand bargain plans designed in Washington that pivot around Israel. The shifting balance of power triggered by Assad’s ouster is unlikely to change this.