New year, new world
The century has ticked over its first quarter, so here’s a recap of some political predictions and more for this year and beyond.
At least half this list has been taken from reputable news sources while the rest is pure fiction. Which is which? *fact checked at the bottom.
1. The newly elected US President will hold high level talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping to establish a smooth framework for the formation of a new political party, the Trump Republic of the United States (TRUS), following in the footsteps of the 1949 formation of the People’s Republic of China. Talks are expected to focus on mechanisms for removing the two-term limit on the presidency. Journalists following this story have been unable to contact the two delegates (out of 2,964) who voted against the 2018 term limit change in China.
2. Dunedin airport’s time limited ‘goodbye’ rule is being rolled out across the globe. Aimed to prevent congestion in drop-off areas, passengers will only be permitted to hug their loved ones for no more than three minutes. Longer lingerers must move to other areas, such as the car park.
3. Early efforts at peace talks between Greenland’s PM and Donald Trump Junior (by chance on holiday in Greenland in January), fall apart as the US reluctantly concedes that economic or military force must be used in matters of US national security. Centuries of indiscriminant warfare by the bloodthirsty Greenlanders and Danes are feeding the mood. It’s pure coincidence that the US is the biggest user and therefore passage payer of the Panama Canal, hitherto controlled by the Panamanian government and Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.
Danish MP Karsten Honge said Denmark would have to suffer whatever decision the US takes. "They just need to send a small battleship to travel down the Greenland coast and send a polite letter to Denmark," he said.
Australia, with skin in the game by way of Queen Mary’s heritage, is able to sit as a non-partisan observer during the talks, sharing similar concerns in a safe space about the danger of New Zealand’s increasing influence in the geopolitical sphere.
4. A living skin made from human cells is developed to use on AI driven robots. Scientists hope to make a breakthrough in the next few years with pumping them full of blood.
5. Hurricane Milton in Florida was purposefully created by shadowy forces at the heart of US politics, so the US government can use hurricane affected land for lithium mining.
6. Nostradamus has predicted ‘the end of a long way,’ which could mean the war between Russian and Ukraine. A new plague is also predicted by the revered soothsayer, along with another war in England. Translation – another global pandemic and Harry and Meghan move back to the UK to live a quiet, wholesome life alongside Meghan’s new career as a journalist on emerging social media platform Truth Social. ‘I’m relieved that there’s finally a space for my own truth, that is, the actual truth, to come out,’ says the Duchess.
7. Meta (aka Facebook), in talking points echoing the incoming US president, announces a return to its roots around free expression. The social media site has over three billion users from the global population of eight billion (three billion people in Brazil, China, Iran, North Korea, Myanmar, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Uganda are excluded from its use). Meta intends to dramatically reduce the amount of censorship hitherto imposed, by removing its fact-checkers and lifting restrictions on divisive topics like immigration and gender.
8. A Spaniard who charges five hundred euros (@$830) to disrupt wedding ceremonies is expanding his successful business model to other formal occasions including trials and inaugurations. He’s currently on the Global Watch List.
Aren’t we lucky to live here. Happy 2025 all 😊
*LRP fact checker:
1. The new TRUS party is false at time of writing, but the PRC info is not.
2. True (the Dunedin part)
3. Half true. It’s unlikely Our Mary and King Fred will have a say in anything, but the quote from the Danish MP is real, as is Trump Junior’s holiday.
4. True.
5. True. Claims Hurricane Milton was ‘engineered’ were widely spread on X and TikTok.
6. True (except the Harry and Meaghan part and hopefully the next pandemic). Truth Social is a social media service owned by Donald Trump where you can create a profile and post messages (called Truths).
7. True
8. Half true. The wedding disruptor is real, but the service expansion is yet to happen.