From Donald Trump’s second term in the White House to a turbo-charged football calendar, here are five things to look forward to in 2025:
Trump 2.0
Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States on January 20, 11 weeks after his landslide election victory against Democrat Kamala Harris.
The Republican swearing-in ceremony in front of the US Capitol in Washington comes four years after the attack on the seat of American democracy by Trump supporters who did not accept that he lost the 2020 election.
Trump’s comeback, at age 78, came despite four impeachments and one criminal conviction and after a campaign that also included two failed assassination attempts on him.
The list includes vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary and Elon Musk, co-head of the Department of Government Efficiency, amid concerns about what his second term could mean for the United States and the world.
He has vowed to make America great again by retreating from multilateralism in favor of power politics.
In late December the president-elect promised to “stop the transgender madness” on the first day of his presidency and immediately begin “the largest deportation campaign in American history” for illegal immigrants.
climate
Could 2025 be the year our greenhouse gas emissions stop rising steadily around the world?
Researchers are pointing to signs from China, the world’s biggest polluter, which is responsible for 30 percent of global emissions, where fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions are projected to rise only modestly this year.
Glenn Peters of the Global Carbon Project says total CO2 emitted from burning coal, oil and gas worldwide could peak in the next few years.
This carbon pollution is the main driver of increasingly dangerous climate change.
But even if there is a peak, Ignacio Aroniz Velasco of the E3G think tank said countries cannot “relax”, and then they must immediately reduce their emissions to aim for carbon neutrality.
football mania
The question of football overkill and player burnout is likely to dominate the supercharged calendar in 2025.
An expanded 32-man Club World Cup awaits the players in the summer, when they would normally have had time to recover from the national league.
And it comes after a particularly busy season that has seen the much-anticipated expanded Champions League – the leading European club competition – take on a new format.
It’s all part of a trend to increase the number of high-profile matches in football – the next World Cup in 2026 will welcome 16 more countries, resulting in 104 games instead of 64.
The specter of Saudi Arabia also looms large as hosts of the 2034 World Cup, which will pump more money into the game with potentially transformative results.
Other controversies that have sparked include the continued use of VAR technology, which is currently locked in a love-hate relationship with players, fans and pundits.
Kumbh Mela
The largest gathering of humanity on the planet will take place from January 13 to the end of February when 400 million people are expected to attend a spectacular Hindu festival on India’s sacred river banks.
The Kumbh Mela, held every three years, takes place at the spot where the holy Ganges, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers meet, rotating between four different holy places.
Classified as an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO, the mega-festival will include a temporary city in the northern city of Prayagraj. The last time the festival was held there in 2013, it attracted 120 million people. 36 people died in the stampede.
Hindus believe that taking a dip in the confluence of rivers will wash away their sins and help them attain “moksha”, freeing them from the cycle of birth and death.
Oasis and BTS return
On one side, the terrifying bad boys of Britpop, on the other side the fresh-faced darlings of K-pop.
After stepping away from the stage for different reasons, both Oasis and BTS are set to return in 2025, much to the delight of their fans.
Led by the Gallagher brothers Liam and Noel, Oasis would return in 2009 after a high-profile dispute – one of many – that led to a 15-year split.
The band behind the songs “Wonderwall” and “Champagne Supernova”, which achieved anthemic status in the 1990s, embark on a world tour starting in the UK and Ireland and moving on to North and South America.
In the initial rush to purchase tickets from official sites, many fans who missed out sought alternative sources – leading to a huge increase in ticket scams.
It will be a very different environment in South Korea, where hugely popular K-pop boy band BTS promises to reunite in June after seven of its members finish their mandatory military service.
This is the comeback that millions of fans and the entire billion-dollar industry have been waiting for.
Experts say the megastar’s return to performing and public life could lift South Korea’s cultural export bandwagon even higher.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
