[unable to retrieve full-text content]Europe's leaders are gearing up for frantic summiteering as they battle to safeguard the future of the single currencyEurope's leaders are gearing up for a fresh round of frantic summiteering in 2012 as they battle to safeguard the future of the single currency, amid predictions that the deal struck in December will rapidly be overwhelmed by events.Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, will meet Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, on 9 January, kicking off Read more

[unable to retrieve full-text content]More shop closures and failures are predicted amid weak consumer spending and the continued march of the internetThe high street reckoning will continue into 2012 amid a toxic cocktail of weak consumer spending and structural change.In 2011, it may have seemed as if an entire shopping parade's worth of chains disappeared. But with little or no sales growth predicted in 2012 and competition from the internet and supermarkets intensifying, the bell is ringing for Read more

[unable to retrieve full-text content]British manufacturers see some reason to be optimistic for 2012 – as long as the eurozone deals with its problemsManufacturing will be an economic and emotional totem for British business this year. Backed by George Osborne's call for a "march of the makers", Britain's producers have become a symbol of the new economy that a post-crunch nation is striving for.The drive to rebalance the economy – three-quarters of Britain's GDP is dependent on services such Read more

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Newsnight economics editor Paul Mason talks about global revolution, his musical past and the girl biker gang in his novelSo, you've written a novel [Rare Earth]… presumably because there simply isn't enough economics news at the moment?I actually wrote it in 2009 when we were in a bit of a lull. And I was in China and it just hit me that you are never going to tell the story of China factually because so much of it is hidden from you. They're going to have Read more

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Yes, the mood is downbeat. But the actual statistics – on the economy, terror, crime – tell a very different storyIt seems a hard time to be confident about the state of the country – or the state of the planet. We are still facing the aftershocks of the worst recession since the great depression and a significant risk of dipping back into it. Europe's economy looks increasingly old and enfeebled compared with the virile young tigers of Asia. Terrorism Read more