The World Today: December & January 2012/13: Can we follow the Nordic road?

Doctor and human rights activist, Moncef Marzouki is interim president of Tunisia as it struggles to convert the Jasmine Revolution of 2011 into a stable democracy. He talks to Alan Philps about his fears that people will lose patience with the process of drafting a new constitution

Britain’s attitudes may have been shaped by its imperial past, but it defines and pursues its interests like any other state, writes Gideon Rachman

Iran and the South China Sea are top of the 2013 foreign policy agenda with rising tensions forcing them into the world spotlightOn January 21 Barack Obama will be inaugurated for his second term, while in Beijing a new Chinese leadership takes shape over the coming months. But the world is not being made afresh: in both capitals these are old-new leaderships: the Chinese succession process seems designed to minimize shocks and surprises. As for Obama, his strengths and weaknesses are well known. One thing, however, is certain. Over the next two years Obama will have to make a fateful decision on whether to go to war with Iran over its nuclear programme or push the world to accept a deal that is unlikely to satisfy the Israelis. What is equally certain is that Washington would like to reduce its Middle East commitments in order to focus on the Asia-Pacific region, where potential conflict presents a threat to the world’s prosperity. In the following pages, two experts look at two major foreign policy issues: the prospects for a deal over Iran and conflict in the South China Sea.

Our author gets admiring glances as he rides the greenest bicycle

The threat nature poses to world markets

With no captain at the helm, Kishore Mahbubani argues that global institutions must be allowed to adapt to a changing world

Bibi has Iran in his sights, but first he has an election to win

On the digital front line

Two books that celebrate the internet for its ability to undermine old tyrannies and increase the potential for participationSteven Johnson, Future Perfect: The Case for Progress in a Networked Age (Allen Lane) Douglas Carswell, The End of Politics and the Birth of iDemocracy (Biteback)

Selected as a state poet for Kim Jong-il, Jang Jin-sung defected to South Korea and became a best-selling author. He speaks to Libby Powell

Mark Malloch-Brown enjoys a jaunty guide to the super-rich clubChrystia Freeland Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich (Allen Lane, £25)

Food and entertaining feature strongly in diplomatic memoirs. Brigid Keenan, an envoy’s wife for 30 years, shares her experiences as she introduces excerpts from the writings of ambassadors

‘We have a prediction problem. We love to predict things – and we aren’t very good at it.’ These are the words of the statistician superstar Nate Silver, one of the few men in the world who actually does not have a prediction problem: he correctly forecast the results of the 2012 US presidential election in all 50 states. Each December experts are asked to predict events around the world for the coming year. Many of these are blindingly obvious – or just plain wrong. According to Silver, one of the reasons for this is the Web, which allows bad ideas to circulate until they become conventional wisdom.In the following pages Chatham House experts look at some of the notable surprises of 2012, and ask why no one predicted them, and what we can learn.

‘We have a prediction problem. We love to predict things – and we aren’t very good at it.’

‘We have a prediction problem. We love to predict things – and we aren’t very good at it.’ These are the words of the statistician superstar Nate Silver, one of the few men in the world who actually does not have a prediction problem: he correctly forecast the results of the 2012 US presidential election in all 50 states. Each December experts are asked to predict events around the world for the coming year. Many of these are blindingly obvious – or just plain wrong. According to Silver, one of the reasons for this is the Web, which allows bad ideas to circulate until they become conventional wisdom.In the following pages Chatham House experts look at some of the notable surprises of 2012, and ask why no one predicted them, and what we can learn.

‘We have a prediction problem. We love to predict things – and we aren’t very good at it.’ These are the words of the statistician superstar Nate Silver, one of the few men in the world who actually does not have a prediction problem: he correctly forecast the results of the 2012 US presidential election in all 50 states. Each December experts are asked to predict events around the world for the coming year. Many of these are blindingly obvious – or just plain wrong. According to Silver, one of the reasons for this is the Web, which allows bad ideas to circulate until they become conventional wisdom.In the following pages Chatham House experts look at some of the notable surprises of 2012, and ask why no one predicted them, and what we can learn.

Chatham House experts look at some of the notable surprises of 2012, and ask why no one predicted them, and what we can learn.

We have a prediction problem. We love to predict things – and we aren’t very good at it.’ These are the words of the statistician superstar Nate Silver, one of the few men in the world who actually does not have a prediction problem: he correctly forecast the results of the 2012 US presidential election in all 50 states. Each December experts are asked to predict events around the world for the coming year. Many of these are blindingly obvious – or just plain wrong. According to Silver, one of the reasons for this is the Web, which allows bad ideas to circulate until they become conventional wisdom.In the following pages Chatham House experts look at some of the notable surprises of 2012, and ask why no one predicted them, and what we can learn.