“We were warned.” 

So said the byline of the movie 2012, which, according to the ancient Mayans as mentioned on lore and even from that movie, foretold that the world would be no more after December 21, 2012.

Three years later, that doomsday prediction came to pass, and nothing happened. And as we’re still celebrating the survival of yet another apocalypse, wouldn’t it be best if we play soothsayers before 2013 sets in and mention the top 10 2013 predictions of what would happen in the next 365 days? Based on the events and trends where we will be leaving off from the year that will soon be the year that was, these are most likely to happen within 2013:

“We were warned.” 

So said the byline of the movie 2012, which, according to the ancient Mayans as mentioned on lore and even from that movie, foretold that the world would be no more after December 21, 2012.

Three years later, that doomsday prediction came to pass, and nothing happened. And as we’re still celebrating the survival of yet another apocalypse, wouldn’t it be best if we play soothsayers before 2013 sets in and mention the top 10 2013 predictions of what would happen in the next 365 days? Based on the events and trends where we will be leaving off from the year that will soon be the year that was, these are most likely to happen within 2013:

10.  The year when pot will gain full acceptance

This is the moment potheads are waiting for:  After Canada, the United States, and some South American countries, the world will fully embrace the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Studies have already shown that this oft-misused drug can prove wonders in the treatment of complicated ailments that synthetic medicines would have problems treating with, like epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, mental disorders, asthma, sleep disorders, and even certain cancers. With this, legislation banning the use of pot will surely be a thing of the past, albeit some regulation would still be in effect for security purposes, and ostracizing its users will be against the norm.

9.  The emergence of “Red” China

There’ll be no stopping the emergence of China as a new economic superpower, and it may come into full circle in the coming year. With its products seen to fully penetrate the world market but still with some scorn over their quality, its acceptance will happen slowly but surely. This would even result to its Communist Party-led government becoming a leading voice in global matters, thanks to its new honcho Xi Jinping. However, with its emeregence into a global power, it will not be stranger to controversies similar the Japan-China islands dispute and the Spratly Islands standoff, which is now attracting US attention to avert e further conflict. Moreover, let us hope Mr. Xi addresses them well.

8.  Stock prices will continue to collapse

2013 may be the year when investing in the major global stock markets won’t be a good money-making proposition. This could be attributed to the continuous uncertainty given the after-effects of the continuing Euro recession, with no end in sight, and US fiscal matters, considering the start of President Obama’sfresh four-year mandate. Traders would have the right to say that the markets will be bearish and a crash may be inevitable if this is not addressed by the economies, so unless this gloomy situation is to be reversed, the coming year will not be a good time to play the stock market game.

7.  No way but up for commodities

It’s a fact: once prices of oil in the global market rise so would the prices of food and basic necessities. The trend of oil prices breaking records would persist, and analysts even foresee that oil prices would reach US$150 a barrel. As these record-breaking prices of oil would definitely create a domino effect on prices of almost everything, especially in Third World countries, expect a higher incidence of poverty, which would result to more hungry families around and even higher foreign debt. And unless capitalists would make stop-gap measures to mitigate its side effects, rising prices everywhere could even result to conflict.

6.  US will continue to flex Middle Eastmuscles and may trigger a possible World War III

The superpower of the world will continue to flex its political muscle in the Middle East, together with its allied nation-members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato), in overthrowing Syrian strongman Bashar Al-Assad, with a possibility that he may suffer a fate similar to what happened to Libya’sMoammar Gadhafi in 2011. Given Al-Assad’s pronouncement that he and his men will fight on to the death, the US and its allies will also do everything to have him removed and “install a democratic governance”, like what happened to Libya and Egypt of late.

If the US-Nato partnership would continue its pursuit of Iran and its nukes and oil, this would result to an inevitable world war, which would extend the war of aggression against Middle Eastern countries, which would refuse to acknowledge the US’ and Nato’s global hegemony. And this could be as deadly as ever.

5.  More Internet controls = Web attacks

Major players in the information technology industry have acknowledged that governments are exerting efforts to curtail the freedom of Internet users, and this occurred in 2012 especially in countries whose number one tenet is democracy among their people. If this Orwellian act degenerates into a breaking point, this may result into a cyber-revolution and a spate of all forms of cyber-attacks on the Web, including but not limited to hacking, release of viruses and malicious software, and compromise of confidential information. Even the United States will not be spared from these, either; in fact, it would be the prime target of this Internet warfare.

4.  Volatility in the smartphone industry

Some key players in this mushrooming smartphone trade will continue to assert dominance one over the other. Aside from the iOS-Android battle for supremacy, 2012 saw a battle royale between Apple and Samsung over legal issues, and neither would raise the white flag as they may continue to see each other in court.

They should watch out though for the emergence of Windows Phone 8 as a viable smartphone system – if neither Apple nor Google and its allied phone manufacturers, Samsung being the top one, would reboot its market strategies, it may be inevitable that Windows Phone would snatch one of the top two positions in the smartphone market in the coming year.

3.  Google will extend its dominance in the virtual world

What started to be a mere search engine company will continue to lord the online universe like before. The flagship Google search engine will continue to reign supreme and dominate globally; thus, it may even result to competition such as Microsoft’s Bing and the classic Yahoo! eventually biting the dust and rendering these irrelevant.

Since Google changed the mobile landscape through its Android platform and its availability of applications (in which its app market has been renamed Google Play) and giving Apple a run for its money, it will continue its neck-to-neck chase with the Cupertino, California-based companyfor the lion’s share of the mobile business.

2.  There’s no stopping social media

There’s this adage that good things could only go higher, and this holds true especially for social media. With its potential being fully harnessed by people and businesses alike, as well as it penetrating traditional ways of doing business, the overall value of social media outfits like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linkedin (which may even undergo a paradigm shift in the coming year), and even blogs will continue to soar and explore new heights. The only bummer though is that Facebook’s legal struggles over its recently-acquired and popular sub-brand, Instagram, may extend through 2013 and could further alienate an already-disgruntled user base sick of this controversy.

1.  Climate change turns to the worst

On the weather front, things could only get worse, such as extreme weather conditions in some parts of the world which even resulted to national disasters which claimed lives an inflicted damage to property, to wit super Hurricane Sandy and some catastrophic tropical cyclones in the east Asia. Expect this phenomenon to continue in the year to come, where several factors would continue to contribute to these extremes like aspike in CO2 emissions due to high pollution levels in the world’s most populated cities. Heaven forbid that this would result into more severe disturbances, but these may happen as well and is inevitable.