EUROPEAN DEBT CRISIS
From late 2009, fears of a sovereign debt crisis developed among investors concerning rising government debt levels across the globe together with a wave of downgrading of government debt of certain European states. Concerns intensified early 2010 and thereafter making it difficult or impossible for Greece, Ireland and Portugal to re-finance their debts. On 9 May 2010, Europe's finance ministers approved a rescue package worth €750 billion aimed at ensuring financial stability across Europe by creating the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF). In October 2011 eurozone leaders agreed on another package of measures designed to prevent the collapse of member economies. This included an agreement with banks to accept a 50% write-off of Greek debt owed to private creditors, increasing the EFSF to about €1 trillion, and requiring European banks to achieve 9% capitalisation. To restore confidence in Europe, EU leaders also suggested to create a common fiscal union across the eurozone with strict and enforceable rules embedded in the EU treaties.
In December, European banks gobbled up nearly 490 billion euros in three-year cut-price loans from the European Central Bank, easing immediate fears of a credit crunch but leaving unresolved how much will flow to needy euro zone economies.
ARAB SPRING ROCKS THE WORLD
It may not have been the best year. Still, 2011 was a year of superlatives, such as biggest, most and worst. It was also a year of firsts -- at least in a generation. The best hope of democracy swept across the Middle East; women broke new ground, and renewable energy investment reached new heights. At the same time, natural disasters took an unprecedented and tragic toll while a volatile US stock market seesawed more swiftly than it ever had before. Here's hoping the year 2012 is among the happiest.
Decades of autocratic rule swiftly crumbled in the most consequential revolutions since the fall of the Iron Curtain. The Arab Spring began in Tunisia, after a vegetable-stand operator harassed by police set himself on fire. It took a month for angry protesters to oust President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. In late January, crowds spurred on by social media took to Cairo's Tahrir Square and swept Hosni Mubarak from office. Libya's Muammar Qaddafi chose to fight NATO and rebels; he was finally hunted down on October 20. Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh proved the most resilient. He bargained and battled until other Gulf states pressured him to agreed to turn over power on November 23.
SAUDI WOMEN GET THE VOTE
Women in Saudi Arabia can start voting in 2015 — if they can get a man to drive them to the polls. Saudi King Abdullah's announcement may seem long overdue to Westerners; in the Saudi context it's earthshaking. Women now are segregated in restaurants and schools and can work in sales only if they sell female-oriented products. When women protested a driving ban, several were arrested and one was sentenced to 10 lashes. Abdullah overturned that ruling and appears to be struggling against conservative clerics to bring women into the workforce and Saudi Arabia into the 21st century.
WOMEN TAKE UP AUSTRALIAN ARMS
The Australian military ended a ban on women serving in combat roles this year for the first time in its 110-year history. With active campaigns in the Middle East and Afghanistan, Australia opened up the possibility of its women taking up duties previously considered too dangerous, such as disposing of mines, firing artillery or even fighting the Taliban or other foes directly on the frontline. Australia joins Canada, Israel and New Zealand and moves ahead of the US in terms of gender equality — but only in the military. In the private sector, Australian women still earn about 17 per cent less than men.
MADE IN CHINA
China unseated the US last year as the country with the top manufacturing sector for the first time since record-keeping began after World War II. China's manufacturing industry added almost $2 trillion to the gross domestic product of the world's second-largest economy, while in the US, manufacturers contributed $1.95 trillion to the American economy. As the recession in the US battered its manufacturing sector, China's economy hummed along. By the end of this year, the global downturn has dampened even China's growth, so the US and Chinese manufacturing sectors will vie for the title again next year.
SMARTPHONES INVADE CHINA
China was already the world's largest mobile phone market with more than 950 million wireless subscribers, more than three times the 300 million in the U.S. By the third quarter of this year, China also became the world's largest smartphone market by volume. China squeaked by with the lead as shipments reached 23.9 million units, compared with 23.3 million for the US Nokia, while struggling in recent years to compete against iPhone and Android smartphones, continued to lead in China with a quarter of overall smartphone shipments. Smartphone sales likely dipped midyear as people waited for the iPhone 4S, which wasn't launched until the start of the fourth quarter.
BILLION-DOLLAR DISASTERS
At least 12 US natural disasters each caused a minimum of $1 billion in damage and unprecedented loss of human life. A few of them cost much more than that, and in the case of Texas, drought persists. The number of billion-dollar storms will probably reach 14, with a total cost of more than $50 billion, once the final numbers are counted. That's up from eight storms in 2008, the previous high. Extreme weather disasters have been increasing since 1970, based on records going back to 1910. It's a trend that's "virtually certain" to continue, according to a recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Rising global temperatures warm seas and put more water vapor in the air, intensifying storms. Climate change also exacerbates the impact of drought, heat waves and wildfires.
DISASTERS HIT JAPAN
The Japanese earthquake on Mar. 11, which measured 9 on the Richter scale (revised up from the original 8.9), caused a devastating chain of events few people predicted. The quake triggered a tsunami that claimed more than 15,000 lives. Thirty-foot-high waves flooded the cooling systems at Tepco's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, leading to the world's worst nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl meltdown 25 years ago. Apart from the lives lost, more than 100,000 residents in the Fukushima Prefecture were forced to evacuate their homes. The Japanese government said recently that the cleanup could take up to 40 years.
APPLE IS NO.1, BRIEFLY
In August, Apple's market value was $337.2 billion, surpassing Exxon Mobil Corp. for the first time and crowning the maker of iPhones -- at least temporarily -- as the world's most valuable company. Another tech company to claim that title was Cisco Systems, which is now valued at about $99 billion. Apple's rise to the top spot follows a 14-year transformation from a personal-computer also-ran into a seller of everything from smartphones to digital music. Not bad for a company that at one point was 90 days away from bankruptcy, according to its late co-founder, Steve Jobs.
THE BIOMASS BET
The Sun shone on renewable energy, which for the first time ever drew more investment than fossil energy. Investors worldwide put $187 billion into technologies to generate electricity from wind, sun, water and biomass, and $157 billion into coal, oil and gas, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The renewables boom is noteworthy given significant headwinds from economic and financial crises and the slow drift of international policymaking. Achim Steiner, who is U.N. Environment Program Executive Secretary, put it simply: "The progress of renewables has been nothing short of remarkable."
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GREEK DRAMA, STARRING BONDS
Here's what happens when investors turn against a country: Two years ago, Moody's and other agencies cut Greece's credit rating, but its two-year bond yields still hovered around 3.5 per cent. By April 2010, investors anticipated reduced payments and pushed yields up to 10 percent. Demand completely collapsed a year later, and on April 27, 2011, yields surged almost two percentage points, passing 25 percent for the first time. Today, even that seems modest; on December 16, yields topped 150 per cent.
US FALLS FROM GRACE
It wasn't quite the Scarlet Letter, but it felt like it. On August 5, Standard & Poor's downgraded the US's AAA credit rating for the first time. The company slammed the nation's political process and criticized lawmakers for failing to cut spending or raise revenue enough to reduce record budget deficits. S&P lowered the U.S. one level, to AA+, while keeping the outlook "negative." US Treasury debt had carried an AAA rating since 1941. Still, Treasury debt hasn't exactly been shunned: The nation's cost to borrow has fallen to record lows since S&P said the US was no longer risk-free. In November, the average monthly yield on 10-year notes fell below 2 per cent for the first time since 1950.
STOCKS GONE WILD
Wall Street's wildest week began late Friday, August 5, when Standard & Poor's cut the US AAA credit rating. Suddenly Washington's disarray threatened a new economic slowdown; when trading resumed Monday, investors responded to each economic report or whispered rumor as if they had been Tasered. For four days, the S&P 500 swung between unprecedented losses and gains of 4 percent or more, and the Dow Jones industrial average rose or fell at least 400 points. Fed vow of zero rates? Risk on. Euro doubts? Risk off. Everyone was too numb to notice that by week's end the S&P was down just 20 points.
A GOLDEN YEAR
For peace of mind, gold can be pretty unnerving. The precious metal has the unusual quality of being a safe haven while also having highly volatile prices. Gold rose more than 30 per cent since the start of the year, to a record $1,923.70 an ounce in September. The driver was speculation that Europe's debt crisis would worsen as governments in the region and the US tried to shore up growth through monetary easing.
Prices dropped later in September as some investors sold the metal to cover losses in other assets, and gold now trades at about $1,628 an ounce, some 15 per cent below its high. As of December 21, it had gained 14 per cent this year.