By Craig Cormick
Based on highly reliably international contacts, leaked documents and horoscopes from several TV magazines, Nostradamus' Media Watch presents a highly accurate forecast of political events across the globe.
Democracy spreads
After a wave of foreign investment enters South Africa following the election, many other non-democratic countries try elections in an attempt to likewise attract deutschmarks, franks, yen and dollars.
The first countries to call elections include North Korea and China, which, not quite grasping the concept, issue ballot papers that are already filled out and are issued only to Party members.
Several one-party African states amend their systems to two-party states — despite the fact that only the ruling party is allowed to be listed on the ballot paper.
Burma's new elections are much closer to the UN-approved concept of democracy — but the junta continues to ignore the results.
Even Australia decides to reform its electoral system, by abolishing compulsory voting. This is quickly repealed when, in the first by-election under this system, the Democrats win, despite only 4% of the electorate voting for them.
Jeff Kennett becomes premier, again
Before the end of the year, Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett loses office in a coup by the left wing of the extreme right.
Contradicting claims that the coup was bloodless, Kennett goes on every national current affairs program to demonstrate a severe paper cut he received.
After failing to raise a counter-coup amongst bankrupt advertising executives holding positions in regional Liberal Party branches, Kennett leaves the country vowing revenge.
Before a year has passed he has been elected premier of Macedonia. He returns with a trade mission that signs trade agreements for concessions on goats' milk and ouzo with every state except Victoria.
He returns to Macedonia vowing to make the trams there run on time, sacks teachers and medical staff and within another year has solved the "Macedonian" conflict when the UN officially adopts the names: "the Non-Bankrupt Macedonia" for the former Yugoslav republic and "the Bankrupt Macedonia" for Jeff Kennett's state.
Alan Bond's lost IQ found
Bankrupt businessman Alan Bond is brought before the courts yet again when his missing IQ is found in Perth by two schoolboys fishing in the Swan River.
Bond had been using the "Reagan doctrine" as defence in court: that he was unable to recall anything, due to his having lost his memory with the disappearance of about half of his alleged 150 IQ points.
The IQ is found, contained on a floppy disk, in a black briefcase, at the bottom of the harbour near one of Perth's exclusive marinas.
Bond and his legion of lawyers are severely embarrassed at both the discovery of the missing IQ, and the fact that it adds up to only 101 IQ points.
Their new plea that the disk was corrupted is overturned by a judge when it is shown that it is the contents that were corrupted — not the disk itself.