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Janus has done it again. He has opened the door – or gate if you want – to this new year of our Lord 2012. But, maybe we should rather call it another year of the gods, because the gods of the ancient Greeks and the Romans feature very prominently in the names that were given to the months in our modern calendar.  In fact the gods even pre-date the calendar.

Muhammad Ali, who started our life as Cassius Clay and became probably the world’s most celebrated boxer of all times, will celebrate his 70^th birthday next week on 17 January. His career, above all, illustrated the power of mental strength and attitude on the road to sporting success and greatness.

Seeing the fanfare, pomp and ceremony with which South Africa’s ruling African National Congress this weekend celebrated its centenary birthday took me back to 1987 when a considerably more youthful ANC (and me) celebrated its 75^th anniversary in exile in Zambia in a world very different from how we know it today.

As outdoor display advertising, or out-of-home advertising as some industry sources call it, is fast migrating to flashy digital displays on strategically placed billboards to exploit high traffic volumes and the concentration of potential target markets such as  young people – often even on school grounds – age-old controversies are again flaring up all over; from Paris to Cape Town and a number of states in the US.

The annual festive season carnage on South Africa’s roads continued in December 2011 despite all-out official efforts to bring down the accident statistics. By the end of the month  the death toll already stood at 1,232 and was still rising in January as thousands of holidaymakers were heading home. Road deaths in South Africa occur at double the global rate. Conventional campaigns fail year after year and a rethink in approach seems to be needed.

During December at COP 17 in Durban the insurance industry warned that certain impacts of climate change have become unavoidable, and that there is an urgent need to adapt to them. A just released report by the world’s largest re-insurer indicates that 2011 was the highest insurance claim-year for natural disasters in history to date – some $4 billion more than the previous record year of 2005 in the wake of the Katrina cyclone disaster in New Orleans.

South Africans will have to engage in new forms of debates and form new strong partnerships in order to address and ultimately eradicate the scourge of farm attacks in this beloved country, says Jan Hofmeyr, director of the Institute of Justice and Reconciliation in Cape Town, in the last article of our series about the subject of farm attacks.

American-led economic sanctions against Iran have backed that country into a corner from where it is threatening to seriously disrupt the global oil flow by closing  the Strait of Hormus and threatening American naval presence in the region. In recent days there have also been reports about American military personnel arriving in Israel, indicating that some move out of that quarter might be imminent and the world is dangerously close to possibly another major conflict in the Middle East.

On the eve of the expiry-date of the South African moratorium on prospecting for shale gas in the Karoo via the controversial drilling known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking in February, the gas exploring industry’s claims that the process is safe, were delivered devastating blows on two fronts ­– in terms of pollution and geological safety.

Expressed in percentage terms for those high-school students who wrote matric at the end of 2011 the system has indeed delivered a markedly improved performance with much to be pleased about. Looked at in isolation however it also hides the fact that the system as a whole has done worse in delivering candidates to sit the final exam -- with disturbing signs that some culling  takes place in lower grades or even during the 12^th grade year.

After a politically and economically somewhat stormy 2011, some commentators are predicting even heavier storms on all fronts for 2012. While this is quite possible, even likely, for some issues, others may be settled without serious fallout or even be non-starters for drama. We give our best guesses (for informed guessing is the best there is) of some of the more important anticipated developments and events ahead in 2012 for South Africa and the region.

Graeme Smith’s captain’s speech and his remarks at a press conference after the third test against Sri Lanka at Newlands, reminds one of the movie Amadeus in which the 18^th century Venetian classical composer Antonio Salieri ends up in a mental institution and says while comparing himself to the genius that is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: “I am the master of mediocrity.”

Despite the predictions of many of its detractors and considering it is in the midst of a fundamental transition of its core mission at the start of an internal leadership election-year, the African National Congress’s launch of its year-long centenary celebrations went off quite well this past weekend in Bloemfontein.