When questioned, Jesus of Nazareth had this to say on the subject of the end of the world: “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.”  (Mark 13:32)  We don’t seem to have improved on that forecast since and […]

The vast, huddled masses of researchers and analysts in the teeming cyber-sweatshops at Mead GHQ continue presenting their list of Top Global Trends in the 2010s. For earlier posts in this series, go here, here, here and here. God is Back, the 2009 book by John Micklethwaite and Adrian Woolridge of the Economist, points to […]

Apologies to all who have had difficulty reaching the site.  Our servers are struggling to cope with heavy traffic.  We’ve brought in some highly rated (and unbelievably expensive) management consultants and will be implementing their suggestions.  This means cutting intern pay, laying off career employees, dropping the pension program and paying a second and larger […]

One of the most alarming predictions of the IPCC, the scientific panel that is considered the world’s most authoritative source of information on global warming, turns out to be a total fraud, according to this story in The London Times.  The prediction that the Himalayan glaciers, the prime source of water for hundreds of millions […]

Today, January 16, is one of the more resonant dates on the calendar: on January 16, 26 BCE Octavius Caesar was given the title ‘Augustus’ by a cowed and obedient Senate; it is as good a date as any to mark the end of the Roman Republic and the permanent establishment on its ruins of […]

Between 1950 and 1989, the world was divided into clearly demarcated groups of countries.  There was the “First World” of advanced industrial democracies also known as ‘the West’: western Europe; the British and European diaspora in North America, Australia and New Zealand, Japan; the “Second World” of countries under communist rule; and the “Third World” […]

Global Trend #4. Small ‘D’ DemocratizationV.S. Naipaul wrote A Million Mutinies Now to describe India some years ago.  A book about the 2010s could be titled Seven Billion Mutinies Now.  The world population — larger, more urban, better informed than ever before, but also experiencing extraordinary levels of personal and economic insecurity — will be […]

The look at the ten trends that will shape the new decade continues today with the next three trends on the list.  The series began on Monday with a post on the hidden force that shapes our times: the acceleration of world history.  On Tuesday I posted on economic turbulence and proliferation of disturbing new […]

This week the team of crack researchers and analysts at the sprawling Mead GHQ are presenting our analysis of the Top Ten Trends that will affect world politics in the decade ahead.  This won’t be about individual countries, but about the big trends that will shape global politics.  We kicked the series off yesterday with […]

Last week, I blogged about the top ten stories that are likely to shape global politics in 2010.  Starting this week, I’m going to try something more ambitious and write about the big trends that will shape the next decade.In doing that I’ve made a conscious decision not to write about the fates of specific […]