Based on highly reliable international contacts, leaked documents and horoscopes from several TV magazines, Nostradamus' Media Watch presents a highly accurate forecast of political events across the globe. Buchanan runs alone
After Pat Buchanan's win in the initial US Republican primaries, Bob Dole quits the presidential race, and all the other millionaire candidates, including Forbes and Alexander, declare themselves bankrupt. Faced with the horrific thought that Buchanan is now the sole Republican candidate, secretive power brokers begin frantically searching for a more credible candidate. Because of a distinct lack of available talent, they put forward Ross Perot and the mummified corpse of Richard Nixon as Republican contenders. A spokesperson for President Clinton suggests that the Republicans could find a more suitable candidate — widely regarded as a hint that Clinton would accept a Republican "draft".
French military cuts
After implementing the largest cuts to the French military in this century, President Jacques Chirac oversees the largest recruitment of police in this century, forming a special Francophile Brigade. The brigade is charged with kicking in the doors in the early morning hours of any member of the public suspected of using English colloquialisms, hiring US videos, suggesting that Euro-Disney is not integral to French culture or whispering seditious insults about the president. In the first raids, several senior members of parliament are arrested. Unable to grant them amnesty because of public support for the police, Chirac has them sent to military detention camps, formerly run by Club Med on sunny Pacific atolls.
New Australian voting system
Following widespread discontent and informal voting in the federal elections, the contentious Hare-Clark system is adopted for Australian national elections. Under the system, already in use in the ACT and Tasmania, minority parties get better representation. But its real strength, according to the Australian Electoral Commission, is that vote counting is so complex that it takes about three years to declare a winner — by which time a new election will be called.