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.
Copulating Bosnian boars
Over the Christmas season, as world events slow to the speed of the dismantling of a Serbian roadblock, the international media find they are able to focus more closely on issues that really matter.
Shortly before Christmas, in the remote mountains of Bosnia, two rare hairy-nosed wild boars are hit by shrapnel while copulating. The brave boars continue their mating, although the wound has so injured the pair that they are unable to separate.
Originally captured on the amateur video of a South African mercenary, the footage is sold to all major networks, and pirated by a few minor ones. The world's media flock to the scene and set up round the clock vigils, beaming the fading strength of the rutting boars into the lounge rooms of the globe. People pause in their pre-Christmas haste and shed tears in each other's arms.
Within the week "Save the Boars" T-shirts are on the streets and charities' once empty coffers begin filling with "boar only" funds. Donations flood in from most countries of the world, including Haiti, the Sudan and Somalia.
Well-spoken and well-groomed experts fill the airwaves, commenting on the mating habits and other known biological behaviour of hairy-nosed boars.
Former Beatle Ringo Starr comes out of self-imposed exile to lead a world line-up of former rock stars in self-imposed exile, to produce a hit single, "Don't forget us boars".
Michael Jackson leaves his drug rehabilitation amusement park in Switzerland for a quick helicopter flight to drop two interlocked walkmans to the boars, whose strength is now fading fast.
The pope receives a 50 minute standing ovation when he mentions the boars in his Christmas address, and millions return to the Catholic faith.
US President Bill Clinton, the UN and the European Community begin a prolonged battle over who should get the honour of saving the boars, each pledging advanced veterinary surgeons and private beds in their nations' leading clinics. While they are trying to reach an agreement, the European Community dissolves over the issue of German veterinarians boasting they are better able to treat the boars than any other European country's veterinarians.
Paul Keating and John Hewson each accuse the other of doing too little for the boars and counter-accuse the other of making statements purely to gain cheap political points. Paul Keating is judged by most morning television news shows to have won the most cheap political points when he announces he is sending a navy warship to the Adriatic.
But before the ship can even leave our territorial waters, on its non-specific mission of mercy — the boars die. Late at night, with the multiple lights of camera crews melting the falling snow about them, the pigs succumb to their long untreated wounds. The world goes into mourning.
A UFO lands on the lawn of the White House, and Elvis emerges, stating he has been a roving diplomatic ambassador for the aliens for the past two decades. However, the world is so preoccupied with grief, only the US National Enquirer covers the story.
Ringo Starr returns to self-imposed exile, the world's media dismantle their equipment and quit the remote mountains of Bosnia, to appear on each other's programs discussing books they have written on their experiences there.
The remains of the boars are sealed in plexiglass, donated by the Michael Jackson Institute of Cryogenics, and the site becomes a shrine of remembrance for international pilgrims.
Slowly the world gets over its grief and returns to normal. Or as normal as our world has ever been.
Welcome to 1994!