In a tumultuous world, insecurity, change and uncertainty seem to be the only constants. Which is why predicting the future is a challenging art mastered by only a few.
Of course it is a challenge we cannot resist, which is why we put so much effort and care into producing this publication. But as the developments of the past year have shown, it will never be an exact science.
It is almost a year to the day now that the ANC went into its fractious conference in Polokwane, which was charged with an air of change. But who would possibly have guessed that the change that would come would be so cataclysmic to the party's fortunes?
Also a year ago, a message of change of a different kind was poised to capture the imagination of a nation - and the world. A little-known state senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, was about to embark on a historic race in US election history - a race that finally won him the White House.
Two different takes on change, two different outcomes. We carry both of the stories in these pages because we believe they will affect your world, one way or the other.
It is hard to be optimistic about 2009. For us at home, the 2009 elections will frame the year ahead, but it will be under the cloud of economic anxiety and political turmoil. Internationally, almost all advanced economies are now expected to be in recession during all of 2009. According to the International Monetary Fund, this would be the first full year of negative growth since World War 2. This means that emerging-market economies will also weaken sharply, so expect revised growth figures for the next year here too.
So it is more the result of circumstances than intention that SA in 2009 has a strong economic bent.
After five years of editing this publication, we have found this edition the most nerve-racking to put together. With the political, economic and financial landscape changing almost daily, few writers were willing to risk their reputations on predictions that would almost certainly have changed by the time of publication.
But despite this, we were still able to draw from the best journalists in their fields and a host of the most respected commentators and writers to compile a magazine that we hope lives up to its reputation and will not disappoint.
