This was a year that threw uncertainty out the window with Brexit, Trump's win, power play in Asia and war in the Middle East. The Straits Times correspondents and contributors take stock of how the ground has moved and what that means for 2017.
When hard truths lose out to seductive lies
Did you know that the Pope already endorsed Mr Donald Trump as US president, urging faithful Catholics to vote for him months before Mr Trump faced the American electorate?
Were you aware that, once safely outside the European Union, Britain would be able to reconnect to its former colonies and recreate the splendour and prosperity of its old empire? And did you know that, recently, a teenage Russian girl was repeatedly raped in Germany by Muslim migrants, but that the German government hushed up the entire affair and allowed the perpetrators to escape unpunished because it did not wish to admit that Germany's immigration policies are filling Europe with dangerous criminals?
If you were not familiar with these stories, don't worry too much, though. Because they are utterly false, complete concoctions from beginning to end. Yet each one of these stories was believed by tens of millions of people during this outgoing year. And each one had direct consequences, by contributing to changed political realities in the countries concerned.
How Eastern Europe blew up the West
Like the rise of Soviet communism and both world wars, the Western liberal order's apparent collapse in 2016 could turn out to be yet another historic upheaval that began in Eastern Europe.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's brand of "illiberal democracy" was quickly adopted by Poland's de facto ruler Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and is now making inroads in the heart of the West - first with the United Kingdom's "Brexit" referendum, and then with Mr Donald Trump's victory in the United States' presidential election.
Meanwhile, Turkey's nascent democracy has given way to Mr Recep Tayyip Erdogan's strongman rule, and the Philippines is now led by a populist authoritarian, Mr Rodrigo Duterte. As we head into 2017, something is clearly rotten in the state of democracy.
Europe's values are its best defence
The year 2016 will go down in European history as a time of striving to maintain the political, systemic and social unity of the European Union (EU) as a community of countries, people and values. It was a time of uncertainty and highly visible failures. But it was also a year marked by real achievements.
Above all, the United Kingdom's vote in June to exit the EU stands out as a bitter disappointment. And yet a new pan-European consensus on the protection of the EU's external borders, together with the conclusion of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with Canada, warrants cautious optimism.
Most of the problems the EU has been grappling with for some time now have not been fully resolved.
Urgent need for peace in the Middle East
This year, conflicts in the Middle East continued to proliferate far beyond the Israel-Palestine issue that had dominated regional politics for so long. Heading into 2017, four key countries - Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen - are tearing themselves apart in civil wars.
These conflicts are directly or indirectly affecting the rest of the world, by exporting terrorism and refugees - products that are contributing to resurgent populism and authoritarianism in the West from which almost no country has been spared. In the coming year, the world will find itself under more pressure than ever to start resolving the Middle East's conflicts and their dangerous spillover effects.
For starters, reviving the Israel-Palestine peace process must be a high priority. Although the conflict has not garnered as much attention in recent years as it once did, it is no less important to bring the occupation of Palestinian territories - and the attendant humanitarian crisis - to an end.
The year Asia's power balance
In the 1942 Hollywood classic Casablanca, Major Strasser of the Third Reich tells the French police prefect that his impression of saloon keeper Rick Blaine, the principal protagonist, is that he is just another blundering American.
Captain Louis Renault's response is to caution that no one should underestimate American blundering.
"I was with them," he says meaningfully to the arrogant German, "when they 'blundered' into Berlin in 1918."
Xi Jinping's year of living dangerously
It might seem ludicrous to suggest that President Xi Jinping, China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, will be in danger in 2017. But looks can be deceiving, and his consolidation of power may not be as unassailable as it seems.
The test will come next year, when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) holds its 19th National Congress to select a new team of leaders to serve under Mr Xi.
To be sure, since becoming CCP general secretary in November 2012, he has made great strides in establishing his own authority.
Democracy, inclusion and prosperity
It is a truism that people everywhere want to live in a safe, prosperous country where they enjoy freedom of thought and action, and can exercise the democratic right to choose their government. But the world faces a disarming question in 2017 and the years ahead: How can we be sure that political freedom and economic prosperity go together?
The American political scientist Francis Fukuyama has argued that liberal democracies, with their political freedom and economic success, have three important pillars: a strong government, the rule of law and democratic accountability. I would add a fourth: free markets.
Strong government does not mean simply military power, or an efficient intelligence apparatus. Instead, it should mean effective, fair administration - in other words, "good governance".
The religion question in the New Year
As we enter 2017, a very old debate about the role of religion in society has come to the fore. It is centred on the extent to which religion should determine political legitimacy, social frames of reference and personal identities.
Religion's social role is a conspicuous problem in the Middle East. But now it is causing tensions in Europe as well, owing to the influx of predominantly Muslim refugees fleeing to the continent, and in the United States, where President-elect Donald Trump's campaign stoked fears about Islamist radicalism.
With militant Islamism on the rise in the last decade, many people in the West are asking if Islam itself is inherently in conflict with diversity and is, therefore, incompatible with secular modernity.
The challenge of economic inclusion
In 2016, the world's attention was focused on major political developments in the European Union, the United States and other countries, where voters have expressed deeply held concerns about trade, migration and structural labour market changes.
But, from an economic perspective, 2016 was a fairly quiet year. The global economy continued its slow recovery, with economic activity in the US, Europe and emerging markets gradually improving, despite some remaining vulnerabilities.
And even low-income economies that have struggled to adjust to falling commodity prices may receive a small boost, given recent price increases.
Meeting the populist challenge
Capitalism is the greatest engine for prosperity that the world has ever seen.
But the democratic institutions that create the space for business leaders to operate have not kept up with accelerating economic and technological change; nor have they made the necessary adjustments to ensure that enough people benefit from the system to which they all belong.
All leaders should keep these two thoughts firmly in mind as they respond to 2016's populist backlash - manifested in Brexit, Mr Donald Trump's election victory in the United States, Italy's failed constitutional-reform referendum and so forth.
Getting past the globalisation bogeyman
As we enter 2017, globalisation has become a dirty word. Many see it as a conspiracy by elites to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.
According to its critics, globalisation leads to an inexorable increase in income and wealth inequality: The rich get richer and everyone else gets nothing.
One bogeyman begets another.
A year of consultation, consolidation for Singapore
If 2015 was a year of celebration for Singapore as it marked its golden jubilee, 2016 has turned out to be a year of consultation and conversation on the nation's future.
The focus? How citizens, companies and government agencies can step up, pitch in and work together to steer Singapore in a more challenging environment. The long-term goal is a stronger Singapore when the city state marks SG100, come 2065.
A range of discussions took place throughout the year, some public, others in smaller groups.
Saving the centre
There is no doubt about the waves of discontent and anger sweeping Western politics. The United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union after four decades of membership, jeopardising all the intricate trading and political connections that such a long relationship created. Against all forecasts by political pundits, Mr Donald Trump won the United States presidency, something the political class thought virtually inconceivable. Throughout Europe, new political parties are springing up, all based on variations on the same theme: The political establishment has ignored us, and we will throw them out in protest.
One defining feature of this uprising is that the impetus for change has become more important than any consideration of what change might mean in practice. The things said by leaders riding this wave can be wildly out of kilter with normal rules of political conduct; but none of it matters. What matters is that the revolt is happening, and whoever happens to catch the wave will be born aloft.
By contrast, politicians who make reasoned arguments of a conventional kind merely irritate rebellious voters, arousing impetuous dismissal, if not contempt and derision.
One swimmer, one nation: When Schooling raced past Olympian greats to clinch S'pore's first gold, he galvanised the spirit of a whole nation
Moved to tears by a man in water
Sport ostensibly brings people together and yet its purpose is to separate talent. It is an inclusive pastime which is full of exclusive clubs. Only eight nations have won football's World Cup and only five have won cricket's equivalent. For years wherever I went, I got the same annoying sporting question: So many Indians, not even one individual Olympic gold medal?
Trophies and medals don't make us better nations, just briefly happier and united ones. We like to see one of our own recognised for his talent. We like to believe that in water, land or air that we are no less.
When an Indian did win gold, in 2008, I wasn't there at his event. But I was for Joseph Schooling and I got to see from close quarters what a first gold means to a people.
I was there when history was made
Memory fades and so years from now, I might not recall that momentous minute as vividly as I do now. I may forget the rawness of it all; the nerves first, then relief, joy, disbelief and pride.
But even if my memory dims, one thing I cannot forget: how great a privilege it was to have been there that night.
Unlike most spectators who were at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium that cool, breezy night in Rio, for me this was not simply a special swim with an unbelievable result. My shared nationality with the swimmer and my proximity to his feat meant it went far beyond that.
A 'sporting culture' in days to come
Alice Soh confessed that she did not swim.
But no matter. Joseph Schooling was a hero and that was a good enough reason for the retiree to jostle with thousands of other Singaporeans at Raffles City Shopping Centre to try and get his autograph.
The interview with her, which was captured in a video of the Olympic champion's victory parade around Singapore on the The Straits Times' webpage, was a seminal moment for me.
The day a Singaporean kid ruled the planet
When Manny Pacquiao boxes, his entire country comes to a stop and Filipinos are glued to their television screens. When Joseph Schooling was about to swim his 100m butterfly final on the morning of Aug 13, my 72-year-old father was gently tending a community garden a few floors below our HDB apartment. Every man must have his own interests.
Upstairs, like a true sports nerd, I was reciting swimming records to my bemused mother and sister. They are both Manchester United fans whose purpose in life is to taunt this Liverpool diehard.
But that morning, there was no partisanship, just the three of us, together, fixated on a pool of water.
Champion with a clarity of purpose that spurs others
Sometimes a measure of a man is not just what he does but also what he says. Joseph Schooling's performance in the pool in Rio was fantastic but his words in the press room later were as gripping.
Exhausted and triumphant, he could have been excused for lapsing into cliches or launching into a gooey Oscar-style thank-you speech.
Instead, he was very clear about what he wanted to say, able to articulate what he had achieved and what it meant. It was as if he knew his purpose.
The golden handshake that marks a new beginning
Nothing for me beats the poignancy of the handshake between Joseph Schooling and Michael Phelps in the Olympic Aquatics Stadium pool, seconds after the 100m butterfly final.
The previous 50 or so seconds had felt like a blur of bodies splashing in water, heads bobbing up and down and Singaporeans - including me - holding our breath.
It was hard to comprehend the significance of what I had just witnessed until that handshake.
A family trying to make the most of their time together
It was just another lazy afternoon in the Schoolings' Marine Parade home. Joseph had just wrapped up another public engagement and was home for a quick nap.
He went into his bedroom and emerged minutes later, holding a watch. "Happy birthday dad," said the Olympic champion, passing the gift to a surprised Colin as his mother, May, looked on.
At a loss for words, Colin kissed his son and began fiddling with the dual time watch, which shows the time in Singapore and in Texas, where Joseph is based.
