The year saw opposition to the Assad regime in
Syria
escalate into full civil war. In the worst atrocity of the conflict so
far, around 400 people were massacred in the opposition town of Daraya.
The fighting reached Damascus, the capital, and the rebels gained
control over large parts of the country.
Turkey,
which is sheltering thousands of refugees, occasionally exchanged
artillery fire with Syria. The death toll this year is at least 30,000.
Egypt, the font of the Arab spring, was plagued
by further sporadic violence, including at a football match in February
at which 74 people died in riots. Muhammad Morsi won a presidential
election to become the first elected Islamist head of state in the Arab
world. He proposed a new constitution that critics say is excessively
Islamist and endangers minorities.
The post-revolution National Transitional Council in
Libya handed power over to an elected congress, though factional fighting continued. On September 11th the
American ambassador was killed in an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi by armed militants.
An air strike by
Israel that killed the head of Hamas’s military wing helped spark a week-long war in which 140-plus Palestinians in
Gaza
and six Israelis died, before Egypt brokered a ceasefire. Two weeks
later Khaled Meshal, an exiled leader of Hamas, paid his first visit to
Gaza since his movement took over in 2007.
Myanmar continued along its reform path,
holding elections that returned Aung San Suu Kyi to parliament. She was
allowed to travel abroad for the first time in 24 years; Barack Obama
became the first American president to visit Burma. The Burmese spring
was marred, however, by deadly ethnic rioting between local Buddhists
and
Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state.
Always in the bleak midwinter
South Korea affronted
North Korea
in the summer by suggesting the Hermit Kingdom would gradually reform
and become more open under Kim Jong Un. Pyongyang retorted that this was
“ridiculous” and “a foolish and silly dream”.
A lingering constitutional row in
Pakistan came
to a head when the Supreme Court sacked Yousaf Raza Gilani as prime
minister for not following its order to reopen a corruption case against
the president, Asif Ali Zardari.
European leaders tackled the debt crisis in the
euro zone
at umpteen summits that proved largely unproductive. It was left to the
European Central Bank to calm markets by pledging to do “whatever it
takes” to save the euro. It announced an “Outright Monetary
Transactions” programme to buy unlimited short-term government bonds
from countries that ask for assistance and agree to a plan to reduce
debt.
The ECB’s move was designed with
Spain and
Italy in mind. Spain had already requested help to shore up its
struggling banks. Mariano Rajoy’s government also contended with a
surging independence movement in
Catalonia; an election in the autonomous region proved inconclusive.
The run-up to June’s election in
Greece
produced a few jitters when left-wing parties threatened to tear up the
country’s bail-out agreement if elected. Markets breathed a sigh of
relief when the centre-right New Democracy formed a coalition
government.
After three weak and divided years in office, the ruling Democratic
Party of Japan lost an election. The winners were the Liberal Democratic
Party, which ruled for most of the half century up to 2009.
Shinzo Abe returned to his old job as prime minister; his previous one-year term is widely considered a disaster.
Apple became the most valuable company ever (in
nominal terms), beating the record that Microsoft hit in December 1999.
Apple’s share price peaked at $705 before entering bear territory and
falling by 25%, to $510; at the start of 2012 it had been $410.
America was much unchanged after November’s general election, despite
a record $2 billion spent on the presidential race that saw
Barack Obama
re-elected. The Republicans kept control of the House of
Representatives and the Democrats the Senate; for the first time white
men will no longer form the majority of the Democrats in the House (they
still account for around 85% of the Republicans).
I’ll be home for Christmas
Mitt Romney picked off his challengers in a
bruising round of primaries to become the Republican challenger in the
election. His campaign was full of mishaps but the political lexicon was
enriched by “Etch-a-Sketch candidate”, “binders full of women”, “the
47%” and “retroactive retirement”. The highlight of the party convention
was Clint Eastwood holding an imaginary conversation with a stool.
There was significant political change in
France
when voters dumped Nicolas Sarkozy in favour of the Socialists’
François Hollande. It was the first time the left had won a presidential
election since 1988. Mr Hollande soon had to face up to tough choices
on spending cuts that he avoided in the campaign. His approval rating
sank to 35% after seven months in office, a record low.
In other big presidential elections, Vladimir Putin vaulted back into office in
Russia for a (non-successive) third term; Enrique Peña Nieto was victorious in
Mexico; and Ma Ying-jeou was re-elected in
Taiwan.
Serbians turfed out Boris Tadic in favour of Tomislav Nikolic. To no one’s surprise Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov won again in
Turkmenistan. All the other candidates were from his autocratic party; he got 97% of the vote.
Hugo Chávez was returned to office in
Venezuela’s
presidential ballot, but less than two months later he revealed that
his cancer had returned and he anointed his vice-president as his
successor.
O Star of wonder
Xi Jinping emerged as China’s new leader from
its inscrutable process of selecting the general secretary of the
Communist Party. Mr Xi’s mysterious two-week absence from public view
two months before his selection was never explained.
Earlier China’s elite was rocked by the biggest political scandal in decades when
Bo Xilai
was removed from the Politburo because of events stemming from the
death of a British businessman. Mr Bo’s wife was found guilty of murder
at a speedy trial. The world was also enthralled by
Chen Guangcheng’s escape
from house arrest. The blind civil-rights lawyer’s arrival at the
American embassy in Beijing caused a diplomatic spat, but he was
eventually allowed to leave for the United States.
A territorial dispute over the ownership of some rocky islands in the
East China Sea
produced a wave of anti-Japanese sentiment in China, and raised fears
that sabre-rattling in the region could provoke a war. Business between
the countries suffered.
The once-hot
BRIC economies cooled rapidly in 2012.
India
was criticised, notably by Barack Obama, for its perceived hostility to
foreign investment. It proposed a budget laden with taxes aimed at
overseas companies, but Parliament did pass a law that will allow
foreign supermarkets to open shop.
South Africans were shocked by scenes
reminiscent of the apartheid era when police opened fire on striking
miners at a platinum mine, killing 34 of them. The wave of unrest that
followed the incident crippled the mining industry for several weeks.
The most eagerly awaited IPO in years was deemed a flop.
Facebook’s
shares soon sagged from the price of $38 set on its stockmarket debut;
three months later they were under $18 (they have since risen). Critics
said Facebook had set the price too high; still, the IPO raised $16
billion for the company and its early backers.
It was a rocky year for some of the other tech titans. Markets lost count of the changes in chief executive at
Yahoo!;
Hewlett-Packard chalked up an $8.8 billion quarterly loss related to its acquisition of Autonomy; and
BlackBerry saw its share of America’s smartphone market fall to 1.6%.
The banking world was rocked by the
LIBOR
rate-fixing scandal. Barclays admitted that some of its traders had
colluded to manipulate the rate and Bob Diamond was forced to resign as
chief executive. At the end of the year UBS paid $1.5 billion to
regulators.
Britain’s coalition government skidded in the
polls, especially after it presented a budget that cut the top rate of
income tax while increasing the tax burden on pensioners, which was soon
dubbed a
“granny tax”. Those provisions stayed,
but George Osborne, the chancellor, reversed some of his budget’s other
politically unpalatable measures, such as a “pasty tax”. He kept his job
in David Cameron’s first
cabinet reshuffle.
Joyful and triumphant
Britain had its wettest summer in 100 years (which is saying something). Amid the gloom celebrations for the queen’s
Diamond Jubilee
produced some sparkle for austerity-weary Brits, though it rained on
the day and Prince Philip got a bladder infection. The queen was given a
cameo (in a James Bond spoof) at the spectacular opening ceremony of
the
London Olympics, which were hailed as a great
success. America’s Michael Phelps added more medals to his haul and
became the most decorated Olympian ever.
Coalition casualties in
Afghanistan were the
lowest since 2008, though there was a rise of “green-on-blue” attacks by
Taliban sympathisers in the Afghan forces against ISAF troops. In March
an American soldier was charged with 16 counts of murder, including of
nine children, after allegedly going on a shooting rampage in two
villages.
The
International Criminal Court handed down
its first-ever verdict and sentenced Thomas Lubanga, a Congolese
warlord, to 14 years in prison. At a special court in The Hague
Charles Taylor, a former president of Liberia, was sentenced to 50 years, the first African head of state to be convicted for war crimes.
J.K. Rowling released digital versions of the
Harry Potter
books. It was a big moment for publishing: Ms Rowling bypassed Amazon
and other online retailers so that the e-books can only be purchased
directly from her own Pottermore website for download.
A spaceman came travelling
SpaceX became the first private company successfully to send a capsule to the International Space Station. China’s ambitious
space programme was boosted when the first Chinese crew docked a vessel, the
Shenzhou-9, in space. On the edge of space
Felix Baumgartner (above) broke the world free-fall record by jumping out of a capsule to plunge 39km (24 miles) to Earth in ten minutes.
The top three
internet search trends worldwide
in 2012 on Google were “Whitney Houston”, “Gangnam style” and “Hurricane
Sandy”. Other contenders included “Pussy Riot”, “Trayvon Martin
shooting”, “The Hunger Games”, “Skyfall” and “Kate Middleton pictures
released”.
http://www.economist.com/news/world-week/21568775-world-year
