National News Eiffelland (from 2009 until 31 July 2020)

[Hesperia]

Diwan of Foreign Affairs

The Sultanate respectfully rejects the views on peace and security held by the Chancellor, reminding him that the situation in one country is not the same as in another. His views are, regretfully, neither "realistic" nor helpful.

We also ask that, in the future, he does not concern himself with the affairs of another nation.

 

[Rheinbund]

Humanitarian aid sent to Bordeu, Aquitaine

The humanitarian aid prepared for the Otchi in Former Freiheit is currently on its way to Bordeu, the capital of Aquitaine. From there, it will be transported to the places where it is needed. Cooperation by the authorities of Aquitaine is expected.

 

[Rheinbund]

Treaty of Preßburg signed
Germanian League in effect per 1 October

Today the negotiations about the Treaty of Preßburg have been concluded. The ratification process will start next Monday with the debates in the Staatstag. Voting in the Staatstag will take place next week as well. Then the Staatsrat will debate and vote upon it. Then the Treaty will be presented to the King. No problems are to be expected during the debates in Parliament; only the Volksunion and the Communists indicated to vote against.
The Treaty of Preßburg will institute a Free Trade Area between the countries of Eiffelland, Danmark, Wiese and Wendmark: The Germanian League (German: Germanischer Bund; Danish: Germaner Forbund). This treaty is historic in the sense that it includes members of the two largest alliances in Europe: Eiffelland as EDF-country and Danmark as LFS-country. Positive effects on the economy of all four countries are expected. Linguists also expect another effect: The importance of Danish as secondary language will increase for Eiffellandians, also because this is one of the two official languages of the Germanian League. During the last decades, Eiffellandian scholars have tended to focus on learning French and English as secondary languages and to put less efforts in learning Danish and Italian (the language of the Tiburan Empire). Now Danish will become as important to Eiffellandians as French and English.

 

[Rheinbund]

Headlines

Staatstag votes in favour of Treaty of Preßburg, with 462 votes for and 38 votes against (15 Sep 2010).
Staatsrat votes in favour of Treaty of Preßburg, with 181 votes for and 18 votes against; Treaty will go to King for ratification (17 Sep 2010).
Law giving adoption rights to same-sex couples in preparation.
Drug gang arrested in Lübeck.
Drug addict dies due to overdose; Drug dealer sentenced to life imprisonment.

 

[Rheinbund]

King ratifies Treaty of Preßburg
Germanian League in effect per 1 October

After his weekly visit to the King, Chancellor Graf von Seydewitz said in a press conference that the Treaty of Preßburg has been ratified by him. With King Albrecht's signature, Eiffelland will form a Free Trade Zone with Danmark, Wiese and Wendmark. This Free Trade Zone will consist of about 200 to 250 million people. Currently the government of Franken is also considering to become a member of the Germanian League. When that would happen, an internal market of 300 million people would come into existence.


Short news

Law change regarding adoption rights for same-sex couples sent to Staatstag.
Bild Zeitung announces exposure of misbehaviour by one of the Princes later this week.

 

[Rheinbund]

Breakthrough in AIDS-research
Double-binding antibodies successful against HIV

If somebody is infected with HIV, his body starts to produce anti-HIV antibodies which are only rarely effective. Only a few people don't become ill. Researchers from the Charité in Trier have found out why: Their antibodies can cope with almost all varieties of the constantly mutating virus, and bind to more than one specific part of the virus. This is extraordinary, because normally antibodies are highly specific for only one protein structure.
Usually, anti-HIV antibodies bind to a protein on the surface of HIV which changes rapidly with each new generation of viruses. Because of this, the body constantly produces antibodies which are specific to a protein structure which has already disappeared. People who are HIV-positive but don't become ill appear to have antibodies which react to a part of an HIV surface protein which hardly ever changes. This is important for future research on HIV-vaccines.
But it was also discovered that about threequarters of the effective antibodies react to more than one substance on the HIV-surface. This is important, because antibodies need to bind to two molecules on the virus to become effective. The protein structure HIV-antibodies usually bind to does not occur very often on the HIV-surface. If one part of the antibody reacts to this protein and the other part of the antibody reacts to another protein, a double binding will happen more often, resulting in a more successful response against the virus.
These findings may be important steps towards a cure for AIDS, according to the researchers. However, they cannot say how long it will take before these findings will lead to a cure.

 

[Rheinbund]

Adoption rights for same-sex couples passes Staatsrat

After the Staatstag approved the legislation regarding adoption rights by same-sex couples two weeks ago, the Staatsrat approved it today. Both the Staatstag and the Staatsrat voted in favour with a large majority. Only the

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, the

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, the

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and a few members of the

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voted against. It is expected that the King will sign the bill next Monday.


BILD ZEITUNG

The amourous life of Prince Johann

We promised you this story much earlier. Unfortunately, we needed to do some more research before we could publish. Please accept our apologies. Herewith the story about Prince Johann. The sports man of our Royal Family. And also its womanizer. The promiscuous life of the Prince and Captain of the Eiffellandian Air Force is well-known. Much to the despair of his parents and grand-parents, he hops from bed to bed and sometimes even engages in threesomes. The women he slept with can’t be counted any more.
With such an impressive record of service, it could be expected that the Prince would have some illegitimate children. Strangely enough, that doesn’t seem the case. Nobody ever succeeded in finding an illegitimate child of the Prince. We ourselves did an extensive search for illegitimate children, and didn’t find any, either. We did, however, find several women who got miscarriages a few months after they were seduced by Prince Johann. One of those women decided to have her stillborn child geneticly examined. The geneticist found a very rare chromosomal disorder. The woman had herself geneticly examined as well. She appeared to be normal.
What does this tell us? We asked a geneticist, who explained us that such a chromosomal disorder can arise spontaneously, but also that one of the parents could have passed it through. In the case of several miscarriages, it should be presumed that the latter would be the case, i.e. that one of the parents would be the carrier of the disorder. Now we have several women who had a miscarriage, and all those women slept with one man before those miscarriages occurred: Prince Johann.
Would he be a carrier of a chromosomal disorder? If he is, he is infertile, despite his unmeasurable lust for women. But would he know? And more important, would he care?

Beaurégard

 

[Rheinbund]

“Public order is at stake”
Mayor of Wetzlar forbids demonstration of extremist rightwing organisation

The Mayor of Wetzlar decided to forbid a demonstration of the extremist rightwing Gotisch-Eiffelländische Liga, planned to be held on 6 November. The reason for this decision was possible disturbances of the public order. Many extremist-leftwing organisations were planning to hold antidemonstrations in Wetzlar on the same day. Chances were high that both groups would start fights on the same day. Furthermore, previous demonstrations of the Gotisch-Eiffelländische Liga led to demolitions in Mosques, Synagogues, shops of immigrants and gay-bars. Furthermore, people who looked like Muslims, Jews, foreigners or gays were attacked until late at night. “I don’t want this to happen in Wetzlar,” the Mayor said.
Spoke-persons of the Gotisch-Eiffelländische Liga indicated that they would start a summary procedure before the Kreisgericht to have the prohibition cancelled. The outcome of such a procedure would be uncertain for both parties. Sometimes, the courts decided in favour of the demonstrators, but sometimes also against them. Sometimes, the courts obliged the authorities to let the demonstration take place, but allowed them to find a location where the demonstration could be contained more easily than in the city centre.
The Gotisch-Eiffelländische Liga is an extremist rightwing organisation of which the members are often linked to violence. It is believed to be linked to the Volksunion, but there is no official evidence for that. Their ideas are very similar, but the Volksunion officially rejects violence, while the Gotisch-Eiffelländische Liga does not. Procedures to have the Gotisch-Eiffelländische Liga forbidden have failed up to now, because its charter does not contain any parts which are contradictory to the Eiffellandian constitution. However, the Gotisch-Eiffelländische Liga is linked to may violence-related crimes.
It is rumoured that several members of the Gotisch-Eiffelländische Liga are planning to go to Wetzlar anyway, whether the demonstration will take place or not. The authorities of Wetzlar are preparing for that. The paramilitary branch of the Staatsschutz will assist the Police with maintaining order.
The Mayor of Wetzlar is currently under Staatsschutz protection, because he has received several threatening letters, probably from members of the Gotisch-Eiffelländische Liga.


Talks between Königliche Eiffelländische Bergbaugesellschaft and Thatise terminated

Talks between the Königliche Eiffelländische Bergbaugesellschaft and the Belmontien mining company Thatise about combining their respective interests in the Talemantine coal mining industry have been terminated. These talks were initiated several months ago, because both parties saw advantages in combining those activities. However, little progress was observed in these talks. With the Belmontien decision to leave the Partnership for Peace with the EDF and the resulting terminations of the security and defence agreements with Belmont, the Königliche Eiffelländische Bergbaugesellschaft also decided to stop the talks with Thatise.

 

[Serenierre]

Foreign Office

The decision made by the KEB just shows to us that as members, of the alliance in question, nations lose their sovereignty to the overpowering forces radiating from Nürnberg. It is exactly for such reasons the Kingdom could not participate in the alliance in question.

 

[Rheinbund]

Aussenministerium
Trier, Eiffelland

Neither the EDF, nor the Franker government, nor the Eiffellandian government have tried to influence the Board of KEB in this matter. Suggestions indicating such influences are not based on facts.

Rudolph Kögler, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Vice-Chancellor


Betriebsvorstand KEB
Köln, Eiffelland

The political events around Belmont and the EDF was a factor in our decision, but we handled solely on our own initiative. The main reason for stopping the cooperation with Thatise was the slow progress in the talkings. The KEB's headquarters are in Köln, and not in Trier or Nürnberg.

Lorenz Hasterer, CEO

 

[Rheinbund]

9 November 2010

Wetzlar forced to allow demonstration of GEL

Today the Wetzlarer court judged that the Mayor of Wetzlar had rightfully forbidden the demonstration of the Germanisch-Eiffelländische Liga planned for last Saturday. Due to previous experiences with deomnstrations by this organisation, it was deemed justified to expect similar problems again and forbid last Saturday's demonstration.
However, the court also judged that the Germanisch-Eiffelländische Liga has the right do demonstrate. Because of that, the Mayor of Wetzlar was forced to allow this demonstration in the near future. The new date for the demonstration was set on 27 November. The Mayor of Wetzlar was forced to find a location which could be secure enough to handle agressive protesters.

 

[Rheinbund]

BILD ZEITUNG

Es waren zwei Königskinder, die hatten einander so lieb

These are the first strophes of an old Germanic ballad. Now again we have a love story of Child Kings here in Eiffelland, although one of the Child Kings is the grandchild of an emperor.

At the beginning of the year, Prince Sebastiano, a grandson of Emperor Waylon of the Talemantric Empire, came to Trier to attend the Königliches Gymnasium and live with the Eiffellandian Royal Family. Prince Sebastiano has the same age as Prince Ludwig. Like Prince Ludwig, Prince Sebastiano would attend the 5th grade. Prince Sebastiano’s education would take an international turn, Prince Ludwig could practice his Italian and help Prince Sebastiano to find his way in a Germanic country, and the Queen’s empty nest syndrome would be cured as well. It is even told that Prince Sebastiano managed to explain mathematics to Prince Ludwig to such an extent, that the latter managed to get sufficient notes for that subject, something to be considered a gigantic achievement. In return, polyglot Prince Ludwig helped Prince Sebastiano with his languages. The latter’s French, German and English improved a lot, and Prince Sebastiano even speaks Aren and Danish nowadays.

But something else happened as well. A something else that nobody expected. A couple of months ago, this newspaper managed to uncover Prince Ludwig’s preferences for guys instead of girls. After that, we managed to uncover the Prince’s boyfriends. Not that there were that much of them (the Prince is very faithful, so we haven’t much to report on him), but nevertheless. The Prince’s latest capture is a special one: The boy who had been entrusted to his father. Indeed, we are talking about Prince Sebastiano, descendant of the Imperial Family of the Talemantine Empire. Prince Ludwig and Prince Sebastiano are in love with each other, and have a relationship.

We already know that the Eiffellandian Royal Family accepted Prince Ludwig’s homosexuality without any problems, but how will the Talemantine Imperial Family react when it hears about Prince Sebastiano’s homosexuality? The ballad about the love story of the two Child Kings ended with the death of both children. Would this story about the two Child Kings Ludwig and Sebastiano end in a King Drama as well? We will keep you informed.

Beaurégard

 

[Rheinbund]

22 November 2010

"This is an enormous step forward"
Very positive reactions on Episcopal Letter

Although the contents had already become public, the Episcopal Letter from the Pope to the Catholics of Eiffelland was read out during all services and masses in the Catholic churches throughout the country last weekend. By far the most people reacted positively or very positively. The gay rights organisations issued a joint statement, in which they commended the Episcopal Letter. "This is an enormous step forward. Homosexuality has always been a sensitive issue in the Christian Faiths. Now the Pope clearly reaches his hand to homosexuals. This will largely improve the relations between homosexuals and The Church," a spokesperson said.
Also the bishops and the Government reacted positively on the Pope's Episcopal Letter. "It clearly shows that we are on the right track and took the right decisions," Chancellor Graf von Seydewitz said. The bishops indicated that the letter helped them a lot.
However, there are rumours suggesting that a very small group of extremely devout Catholics does not agree with the Episcopal Letter. If they would add consequences to this disagreement is unclear. The Partei für das Christliche Leben did not want to comment on the Episcopal Letter.

 

[Rheinbund]

27 November 2010

Protest manifestation GEL leads to fight between radical leftwingers and radical rightwingers

The protest manifestation in Wetzlar by the GEL led to a fierce fight between radical leftwingers and radical rightwingers. Due to experiences with violent outcomes of protest manifestations by the GEL in the past, the authorities of Wetzlar had decided that the manifestation had to be held on a field outside the city. The police managed to contain the manifestation to this field, but could not prevent a group of radical leftwingers from breaking through the cordon. Minutes after that, the complete field had been turned into a fight. The fighting groups were separated after re-inforcements of the Staatsschutz had arrived. About 50 people were arrested, and about 100 people had to be taken to a hospital. Ten people died during the fights.

 

[Confederal Republics]

Ministry of External Affairs
Commonwealth of Cornavia

The fact that numerous fatalities were caused by the recent unrest in Eiffelland is highly concerning, and the Commonwealth government urges the local authorities to take firm action against these radical associations to preserve the health of Eiffelland's democratic systems.

Regards,
Mr. William Fenner,
Minister of External Affairs

 

[Rheinbund]

Kanzleramt
Trier, Eiffelland

We can assure that we will investigate what happened, so that similar events won't occur again. There is, however, no need to worry about the democratic institutions in Eiffelland. These riots may suggest otherwise, but generally Eiffelland is and remains a very stable country. The vast majority of the country does by far not agree with the ideas these radical groups stand for. What happened in Wetzlar is an incident, not a sign of instability.

Matthias Graf von Seydewitz, Chancellor

 

[Rheinbund]

Headlines

Retail businesses satisfied with sales in Christmas Season.
Piëch, Rathenau and Novartis announce good profits over 2010.
Snow in Weissenfels, for the first time in 7 years.
Last schoolday of 2010 at all schools in the country; School to restart on 10 January 2011.

 

[Rheinbund]

Eye implant to be introduced next year

Ralf Zimmermann lived in the dark for eight years. Thanks to a light sensitive chip inserted into his eye, he could see again. Not perfectly, quite blurred, but he could see people move their arms and move towards him. He could even read large letters. This was the result of decades of research carried out by the Humboldt Universität Trier, the Freie Universität Trier, the Charité, the Robert Koch Universität Weissenfels and the Universitätsklinikum der Robert Koch Universität Weissenfels.
This project is unique for more than one reason. Normally, the Charité and the universities behind it are in a constant rivalry with the Robert Koch Universität and its hospital, but in this project they cooperated as friends. It is also a classic example of the cooperation between Eiffelland's universities and Eiffellandian companies: The Eiffellandian Medical Devices company Medtronic will market the eye implant from next year onwards.
According to the scientists working on it, the implant is not perfect yet, but it is an important step. The goal is to let people with acquired blindness function normally in daily life again. It is not possible to use this chip for people who were born blind. The ability to see has to be learned during the first years of life. After that, it simply cannot be learned any more.

 

[Rheinbund]

Eiffellandian Government supports Breotonian initiative on Long Sea and Bay of Narino

Out of concern about the concentration of warships in the Long Sea, the Breotonian Government has started an initiative which was adopted by the Franconian representation at the CoN and turned into a Security Council resolution.
At this moment, the Long Sea and the Bay of Narino is becoming more and more filled with warships, either from countries that want to support Coronado (like Carentania) or from countries that are concerned about the safety of ships from neutral countries. Tensions are raising between all the countries with whichever kinds of ships in the Long Sea. To ease this situation, the government of Breotonia asked the Security Council to demilitarise the Long Sea and the Bay of Narino, and have the navies of Arendaal, Danmark and Breotonia controlled the demilitarisation. In this proposal, nonmilitary ships would be allowed to travel through the Long Sea and the Bay of Narino.
There are quite some differences between the Breotonian initiative and the Frescanian one. First of all, the Breotonian Government asks for a CoN-mandate to have the waters in question demilitarised, the Frescanian government just walled off the international waters around Coronado. Furthermore, commercial ships will have more freedom in the Breotonian plan than the Frescanian government intended. And finally, the Breotonian plan foresees in demilitarising all waters around both Belmont and Coronado, and the Frescanian initiative only blocked the waters around Coronado. Especially this last point was a reason to condemn the Frescanian actions and caused suspicions about Frescania's real intentions (was the blockade really intended to contain the war, as explained by Frescania, or to wall Coronado off while Belmont could easily be resupplied by foreign powers?).
Press officers from the Chancellery indicated that the Eiffellandian Government supported the Breotonian initiative and with that Security Council Resolution 17, although Eiffelland could not vote over it.


How do cancer cells mislead the immune system?

Researchers from the Robert Koch Universität Weissenfels discovered one of the ways how cancer cells managed to escape from being killed by immune cells. Normally, if a cell starts to act abnormally, a protein appears on its surface indicating to the immune systam that it should be killed. But there is another protein that covers up this signal to the immune system to kill the cell. This was published in the scientific literature about a year ago. Now the same group of researchers from the Robert Koch Universität tested a way to remove the proteins that cover the proteins signalling to the immune system that the cell should be killed. In mice with leukaemia, it appeared that the immune system started to target the cancer cells again while the healthy cells remained unharmed. This is exactly what oncologists want to see when treating a patient with cancer. This method is not suitable for use in humans yet, but research is ongoing.


How to make fuel out of carbon dioxide and water

In cooperation with Rathenau Renewable Energy, researchers from the Technische Universität Trier discovered a way to turn carbon dioxide and water into carbon monoxide and hydrogen. This happens in a sun collector covered with ceriumoxide on the inside. When the ceriumoxide is heated to 1500 degrees Celsius, it looses oxygen atoms which it happily collects back from a mixture of carbon dioxide and steam when at a lower temperature, creating a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. This can be used for many processes in the chemical industry (for instance for creating methanol), but also to burn it in a turbine and produce electricity. Such a reactor ran continuously for three weeks without loss of activity. At this moment, the efficiency is low (less than 1%), but the researchers indicate that it should be possible to raise it to 20%.

OOC: Now I realise that I wrote quite a lot of scientific texts here without quoting the sources. I will do so from now on. Up to now, I took information from the scientific annexes of the Dutch newspaper NRC-Handelsblad and the Dutch news site

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. The scientific texts in this post were taken from the scientific annexe of NRC-Handelsblad of 31 December 2010.

 

[Baden-Mecklenburg]

To: Rektor & Kanzler der Robert Koch Universität
From: Dr. Meinhard Rey, head scientist of BMSF R & D branch

Dear Sir or Madam,

BMSF is quite interested in working together with the Robert Koch Universität regarding the final battle against cancer, as we call it. If you are interested, BMSF would be willing to initiate a level 3 studiy right here in Baden-Mecklenburg. We want to advise you of the rather liberal laws in Baden-Mecklenburg, favoring free research in the interest of all people.

Best regards,

- Dr. Rey