Prediction, Roger Nelson. Event on March 12, 2003
Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who fought to transform his
country from pariah nation to pro-Western democracy, was assassinated
on Wednesday and the government swiftly declared a state of emergency.
The prime minister died from his wounds at 13:30 (12:30 GMT) at Belgrade
emergency center. According to TimesOnline he was shot at 12:35 local
Belgrade time (11:35 GMT).
The formal assessment period will be from 11:30 to 14:30 GMT, to
include a little time before the murder, and a couple of hours for
the news to spread. Standard analysis, seconds.
The result is a strong declining trend with Chisquare or 10498 on 10800 df
and a probability of 0.981, which is equivalent to odds of about 2 in 100
of being a chance effect. Of course this is opposite to our standard
prediction, but it may be meaningful, as is suggested by the second graph below.
It seems worthwhile to look at the larger context to see if there might be
any more indications that this is what appears to be an important event on the
world stage. The next figure shows the full 24 hour day, with the
assassination marked. These graphs should not be over-interpreted, but it
is striking. After an ordinary random walk for most of the morning, the
graph shows a very steady negative trend beginning a little before the shooting
and continuing for the rest of the day. A purely aesthetic
interpretation might see "global consciousness" recognizing with sadness the
loss of a good man who was making genuing progress toward regaining a
civilized stature for his country.
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