The refugee crisis, Daesh’s crazed beliefs and the financial problems of Greece were some of the lows of 2015. The highs saw UAE launch a Mars project and mark the start of the innovation theme. Usain Bolt sprinted to victory and Adele broke all records. What will make the headlines in 2016? Who will be the stars? Editors at Gulf News tell you what they think will be the big stories.
Malavika Kamaraju, UAE Features Editor
Innovation
Having set its foundational strength in 2015, innovation be will a recurrent theme in 2016 as the UAE moves towards becoming the dominant knowledge-based economy in the region by 2021. From con-tinual thought leadership to several implementations across the social spectrum, this year will see in-novation grow stronger roots and shoots.
Year of Reading
2016 has been declared the Year of Reading and the drafting of a national framework to turn the UAE into the capital of knowledge will start to yield the first concrete results. UAE’s quest to promote a love of reading among Arabs will also find growing synergy with the acceleration of innovation, as the two forces find integration along the way.
Healthcare
Healthcare will reach new milestones in 2016 as the UAE continues to innovate by promoting higher public healthcare standards and services, increasing support for scientific research and healthcare studies and multiplying the footfall in medical tourism to make the country one of the global bests in the field of health services.
Layelle Saad, GCC/Middle East Editor
Syrian President Bashar Al Assad will stay in power despite attempts by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the Syrian opposition to exclude him from the transitional process. Despite the devastating civil war that has claimed over 250,000 lives and made millions of Syrians refugees, there is no real pressure by the United States to force him out. Russia made a bold statement when it militarily intervened in the war last year. It is here to stay.
Turkey
Tension between Russia and Turkey will escalate as both sides become deeply entrenched in their op-posing stance on Syria. Already the downing of a Russian fighter jet on the Syrian border has ignited a major diplomatic crisis between the two countries with economic and political sanctions expected to intensify.
Palestine
Violence that has gripped Israel and Palestine in the past few months will intensify as the Israeli regime continues to encourage Jewish raids on Al Haram Al Sharif in occupied east Jerusalem. The Israeli re-gime will take advantage of US distraction with presidential campaigning to expand its oppressive and expansionist policies on Palestinian land.
Alex Abraham. International Editor
US polls:
The campaign for the US presidential elections in November will gather pace soon and the best candi-dates from the two parties will be decided over the next few months. So far, Republican candidate Donald Trump has been hogging the headlines, thanks to his controversial statements. But he has peaked early and will run out of steam, leaving Hillary Clinton to finish the race.
India-Pakistan relations:
Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi’s impromptu talks with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif has set tongues wagging about a possible peace deal. It’s still early days, but despite the sporadic cross border violence, peace has a chance and there will be more efforts at this in the new year.
Europe and the refugee crisis:
With more than a million refugees having landed in Europe in 2015, the issue will continue to hit the headlines. Also in the news associated with this will be the rise of the right wing in Europe and the po-litical fallout on leaders who support the inflow of refugees.
Scott Shuey, Business Editor
Oil
Oil prices will continue to dominate global headlines in the first half of 2016. Get used to stories about the challenges Middle East economies will face while oil sells for under $40, but also expect to see cor-porate bankruptcies and bonds defaults in the US energy sector as well. The second half will be better, but not much.
Tech
Don’t expect another bursting bubble, but do expect an ugly year for the tech sector, filled with more over-hyped lemons. The Internet of Things isn’t ripe enough to drive the industry yet and wearables still can’t seem to bridge the gap between style and performance. Maybe an iPhone 7 will give the market something to cheer but not until (probably) September.
Iranian sanctions
Iran’s re-entry into global markets could create a huge boom in the Gulf region, with an estimated $500 billion in trade expected. There is a big BUT attached to this however — the US presidential elec-tions. If The Donald is still leading in the polls come summer time, Western companies will likely be cautious about opening up trade with Tehran.
Duncan Hare, Sports Editor
Fifa
Oh so sadly, in a year of the European Championships — what some believe is now a more competi-tive tournament than the World Cup — the biggest football story will be the Fifa presidential election in February and an opportunity to rid the game of the corruption it has been immersed in. Whether that cleansing happens is a massive question.
Olympics
The 2016 Olympics in August may feature rugby sevens and golf for the first time, but the focus will be on athletics and Usain Bolt, the undisputed sprint king, who will be looking to make Rio his swansong as he guns for the 100m, 200m and the 4x100m relay golds again. Expect him to win.
Twenty20 World Cup
The newest baby in the cricket world is slowly maturing, and this year’s ICC Twenty20 World Cup could throw in more surprises than in the past. They are far from a big name, but Bangladesh may be the biggest surprise of them all. The vastly-improving team have the potential to win the tournament.
Natalie Long, tabloid! Editor
Hollywood
What will Leonardo Dicaprio do for an Oscar? Perhaps the better question is what won’t he do — be-cause it seems there’s really nothing left after eating raw bison liver and jumping into freezing rivers. After being criminally passed over five times, he’s hoping the incredible feat of filming The Revenant (out in the UAE on January 7) will finally nab him a best actor Academy Award. The film is directed by the exacting Alejandro Innaritu, who won several Oscars in 2015 for Birdman.
Bollywood
Shah Rukh Khan will play a sly bootlegger in Raees; Akshay Kumar will shepherd an evacuation drive of Indian civilians caught in a war-torn region in Airlift and Sonam Kapoor will play the brave air hostess who saves passengers who are hijacked by terrorists in Neerja. Welcome to 2016 where content will trump star power in Bollywood. If there’s no story, there will be no song and dance about it at the box office.
Actresses are also likely to give their male colleagues a run for their money as they are game to push boundaries and experiment. Think Kareena Kapoor as an ambitious career woman supporting her stay-at-home husband in Ki and Ka and Alia Bhatt tackling substance abuse in Udta Punjab.
Music
One Direction are on hiatus. So look forward to a) news of them splitting definitively (until the 2025 reunion tour), and b) releasing solo work. The real question is who will get there first: Zayn Malik spends a lot of time getting into social media arguments but an album should be coming soon (he’s been free since March. The others are bent on writing for other artists… but we can’t help thinking we’ll see Harry Styles pop up sooner rather than later.
Ok: You can go back to listening to the Adele album now.
Manal Alafrangi, Opinion Editor
One of the first things they teach you in International Relations theory is the dangers (and difficulties) of making political predictions. The case in point being that very few academics, if any, predicted the fall of the former USSR and the end of the Cold War (we can now add the so-called Arab Spring to the list).
Having said that, I am asked to predict which three main topics will dominate political commentary in 2016. I shall overlook this valuable advice for the sake of this exercise:
Daesh
This terrorist group has benefitted from intensive media coverage in 2015 and given its current posi-tioning in Iraq and Syria, it is not likely to go away any time soon. Moreover, other regional plots and scenarios are intertwined with Daesh — making it very difficult to ignore it in 2016.
Refugees
It is hoped that the plight of refugees will somehow lesson in 2016 but this will depend on several fac-tors including strong political leadership, political trends in the West, Middle East politics, and the ef-fectiveness of international efforts to deal with this crisis. I have a hunch coverage of this topic will dwindle bit by bit…
US presidential race
Not exactly a prediction but political pundits will continue to have a field day dissecting every state-ment made by front runners on both sides until the very end. Here’s to hoping Hillary Clinton at least gets her fair share of coverage in 2016 — for her part, she’ll need to pick up the energy. If I am really pushed to make a prediction on the US presidential race, I would say Clinton will win. Or to be accu-rate, it’s hers to lose.
Anupa Kurian-Murshed, Readers Editor
Social media defined a lot of the news and global events of 2015 through hashtags and collective plat-form trends. Be it #PrayforParis, #IamAylan, #Grexit, #NepalEarthquake or #GOPDebate, each was a conduit for awareness, change, dissemination of news and where needed the delivering of help.
Is it going to be any different for 2016? No.
People consume more and more content on their smartphones, the place for social media platforms. So, I expect livestreaming to get bigger and better. And it will impact all the three listed below:
The US Presidential elections is definitely going to throw up several hashtags and be a top trend for this year.
The refugee crisis and resulting human rights issues are far from over and will generate strong reaction globally, be it among bloggers, instagrammers, facebookers or tweeps.
And who can forget the biggest sporting event – Olympic Games in Rio di Janeiro, Brazil. Definitely a big one for social media.
