And finally, or first if you are starting in chronological order, the risky collection.

I updated the political risk countries last May, so we’ve only a year to cover on this one and although lots has happened, none of it particularly takes us any further forward either way.

Let’s start with North Korea
My forecast for the second half of 2010 seemed mainly to be about a depressed economy. Lack of accurate information prevents me from assessing whether this was true – although there is speculation about continued famine there. I missed the re-lighting of the tensions with S Korea following the island shelling of late November 2010 and the situation that followed it.

I noted a change around March April 2011, including a more outward looking influence and sure enough there is a development as NK sets up an economic zone with China. Though it is not clear how this will play out. I note that I expect even bigger shifts soon ( July- though could be sooner given the upcoming eclipses)

Pakistan
My forecast for Pakistan was integrated with my Indian security forecast. However it was noteworthy that the forecasts diverged more than converged. Pakistan’s continued terrorism problem did not abate.

Probably my gold medal award here goes to my comment for last spring/summer suggesting ‘possible floods’ although to be fair that has got to be the understatement of the year. And they were slightly later than I expected. However my estimation that the focus for the remainder of the year would be economic depression was correct – estimates are that the GDP growth rate of 4% prior to the floods turned to up to -5% after.

I expected more action in early 2011- though I didn’t predict the earthquakes. The change of year coincided with a breakdown of the coalition and assassinations.

And internal terrorism continued of course. With something happening most days it I difficult to pinpoint any difference in the month of March that I highlighted- though disruptions to power supplies on 19 March in one district definitely align with the Uranus Mars configuration I mentioned.

I saw attention turning back to economic matters by May. Which, given that the month started with the US finally tracking down Bin Laden in the country could perhaps be described by critics as my worst forecast ever (*). Although actually talk now is in fact about the budget and government so perhaps I was more accurate than I give myself credit for.

Looking now at my earlier forecast again, I’d suggest that around October through December things will definitely heat up in terms of terrorism and/or political change.

(*) Interesting to note the stellium of planets including the Jupiter Mars conjunction is concentrated in the Pakistan 12th house a good representative of a concerted attack on hiding terrorists.

Israel and Iran
Unlike my economic forecasts my forecasts for Iran and Israel only extended to early 2011, so I don’t have much in the way of forecasts to assess.

Israel
I have to smile when I read my forecast written in 2008- For around May 2010 I had written ‘the problem with these aspects is they are “not very rational …do something at all costs .. worry about the consequences later”. I might have thought this would relate to relations with Iran, but in other respects it proved spot on.

Israel has a remarkable tendency to shoot itself in the foot. And it proved this quite conclusively with its raid on the peace flotilla at the end of May 2010. For a country so concerned with its image in the rest of the world this was a PR disaster. Whilst from the individual’s point of view there were personal tragedies, from a country point of view the one I feel most sorry for in this case is the US who were damned if they did and damned if they didn’t condemn the action. Well, no, I lie, I don’t ever really feel that sorry for the US.

Israel then went back to focussing on what it does best- cursing the Palestinians. Despite attempts at peace talks in September 2010, and attempts to revive some elements on concord into 2011, we are pretty much nowhere

Don’t they ever get bored of this? Because I am already. I thought that there would have been resolution one way or another after all these aspects, but it seems it can be dragged out for ever. Suppose I better update the forecasts, if I can be bothered to care.

Iran
The Iran/ Israel nuclear dispute has been kept rather low key over the last 12 months, although one can be sure that it is still high on the tacit agenda. Iran itself didn’t really have much going on worth noting from Summer 2010 to early 2011. In February 2011, however, it joined with much of the Arab world in having some protests. These however are not on the scale of other countries and not publicised. There is, at this point, not much to say.

Interestingly, I saw things not being moved forward in Iran until February 2011, Indeed looking back my timing fits well with the protests which started with the 2009 election and then flared up in February 2011, though maybe someone just read my blog and acted accordingly ;-).

As I say I haven’t looked at 2011-12 so that is something for the coming few months. Yawn.