The openDemocracy predictive markets are back for 2008.

After a successful first year Tony has passed on the torch of running the markets to me. I've joined the openDemocracy team on a voluntary basis to run the markets for 2008 – and what a year it promises to be! We're planning a series of themed months, closer integration between the markets and the openDemocracy website and we'll endeavour to post more new markets on a more regular basis this year.

We'll be holding a number of themed months throughout the year to mark specific events or in-line with seasons being run on openDemocracy. We hope the influx of markets throughout the year will stimulate trading and make the environment more fluid.

The first of these themed months are a set of new markets centered around Russia and the Presidential election on March 2nd. Many thanks to Hugh Barnes for his assistance in putting together these markets at such short notice.

Russia Markets

• Will Medvedev-2008 beat Putin-2004?
• Will Andrey Bogdanov get more than 5% of the vote in the Russian Presidential elections?
• Will Medvedev pull Russian troops out of Chechnya?
• Will Medvedev represent Russia at international meetings?
• What will the inflation rate be in Russia at the end of the year?
• Will the British Council will be kicked out of Russia?
• Will Russia extradite Andrei Lugovoi?
• Will Britain extradite Boris Berezovsky?
• Will Mikhail Khodorkovsky be in jail at the end of the year?
• Will Ramzan Kadyrov be President of Chechnya at the end of the year?
• Will Russia agree to further economic sanactions on Iran?

As you'll see, some of these markets are short-term only and will expire after the election, while others will continue to run right up until the end of the year.

We've linked to articles on openDemocracy from within the markets themselves last year but this year we'll be going the other way as well and tagging articles with the relevant markets. Where it's practical we'll also be trying to create new markets to go up alongside the openDemocracy articles to encourage readers who may not have known about (or who simply forgot) the markets.

We'll be endeavouring to add new markets on a more regular basis this year – approximately two per week. This includes markets that you submit yourself, so don't be shy about creating your own. I'll be keeping a close eye on new and expired markets, so you can expect a quick turnaround on them. If you can provide several brief paragraphs of information along with the market you can ensure an even quicker approval.

In the past few weeks I've cleaned out the markets that were waiting for approval and cashed out all the markets that expired at the end of 2007. The EU Reform/Lisbon Treaty market has been renewed for another year to allow the question to be answered.

We've had a couple of new election markets posted recently

• Will Silvio Berlusconi be the next Italian Prime Minister?
• Will Zapatero beat Rajoy in the Spanish General Elections in March 2008?

...and a few markets reaching their expiry date.

• Israel will invade Gaza before Feb 29th 2008
• Will Al Gore run for President?

Good luck and happy trading!