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Hesperia

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Nobedat is the website of the Sentro pa Informashon e Notisianan Hesperiano (SINH, Centre for Hesperian Information and News). We are an independent collective of journalists, academics and volunteers dedicated to disseminating news, information and analysis on Hesperia.

Nobedat's mission is to be the premier source for news and information on Hesperia, by Hesperians, in English. To that end, we provide translations of Hesperian news media as well as redacted short news and headlines, next to expert analysis of events in or about Hesperia, produced both in-house and by guest authors from around the world.

Some of the Hesperian printed media we translate, redact and carry:
  • Amanesé
  • De Heraut
  • Ñapa
  • Parana
Under Videos and Podcasts you can also find subtitled recordings and excerpts from Hesperian TV and streaming services. These include:
  • Sistema Hesperiano di Radio e Telebishon (Hesperia 1, 2 and 3)
  • Telesperia
Nobedat strives to be as up-to-date with its content as possible.

DISCLAIMER: Nobedat maintains no links to the Hesperian Government or any of its agencies. Our translations are made in partnership with the media companies and organisations translated. Our main funding source are private donations as well as income through advertisements carried on our website.
 
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AMANESÉ
Na nos futuro • Desde 1941

Bonaventuur: Directory Leading Hesperia to ‘Another 1986’

ALIANÇA, 6 June 2020. The Directory under Torcuato T. Croes is leading Hesperia to a ‘financial cliff face’ that may end up seeing the Republic return to the ‘darkest days of 1986.’ That was the main conclusion reached by Edison Bonaventuur, the Leader of the Opposition, at a press conference for the presentation of Bonaventuur’s new book, Enterprising Freedom, today in Hotel Qantrix in Aliança’s affluent San Agustín neighbourhood.

In what seems a calculated move to mark 200 days since President Croes was sworn in together with the other members of the new Directory, the leader of the Partido Còrá attacked the Patriotic Front government’s economic policies as ‘speculation with Hesperia’s future.’

‘What Cuato is doing is the worst kind of short selling,’ claimed Bonaventuur, who took over the Còrá leadership last November following the party’s crushing defeat in the general election for the People's Junta. ‘Tariffs are a sure way to kill the competitiveness of our exports on international markets; reviving the Ministry of National Production will not compensate; and “taxing billionaires out of existence” will chase out foreign investors.’

Warming to his audience, Bonaventuur declared, ‘It is a tyrannical attack upon precisely those who have created the most wealth for Hesperia! And it is leading us to a financial cliff face. If Hesperia pitches over the precipice, the Republic will find itself in its darkest days since 1986.’ That year, the tula collapsed, leading to a sovereign default under the Faria de Castro presidency.

The liberal leader was referring to the ambitious package of economic measures—labelled the Bientu Nobo (New Wind) by Cuato Croes—adopted by the People's Junta since taking power last November.

The Import Tariff Act of 2020 raised duties on over 20,000 imported goods to average levels of 41%. The National Production Act revived the Ministry of National Production, which drove the growth of industry from the 1950s to the 1970s, but which was abolished in 1990. Finally, the Income Tax (Strongest Shoulders) Act of 2020 raised the tax on inheritances and estates worth more than $1.5 billion to 90%, among many other tax hikes. ‘We will tax billionaires out of existence,’ President Croes declared upon the Act’s passage.

The Directory was unavailable for comment, but Walter Hooi MHP, tax spokesperson for the United Patriots (PPUH), rejected Bonaventuur’s comments as ‘the desperate ravings of a man rudderless at sea.’
 
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Bonus • Sinds 1983

Hesperia ‘Open for Business, Not to Diktats,’ Declares Jesurun


ALIANÇA, 11 June 2020. From our correspondent FLORIS ten CATE. Trade and commerce are welcomed by all. But the terms on which to conduct both are subject to deep dispute. That is the main conclusion of today’s People’s Junta debate.

In questions to the Minister of National Production, Maria de los Mercedes Jesurun, the Opposition, spearheaded by the Partido Còrá, raised international business criticism of the Import Tariffs Act 2020 in the Junta. Jesurun is the minister responsible for tariff and other economic policy.

In a heavy-handed attempt to drive the Croes Directory to change its course, Monday had seen an Uitkijk-based Nedernesian business lobby seek an unusually direct confrontation with the government.

According to the Nedernesian-Hesperian Chamber of Commerce (NHCC), a private group that lobbies on behalf of Nedernesian and Hesperian investors in both the Republic and the Gallic island nation, the Import Tariffs Act is ‘populist policy designed to collect votes’.

The lobby’s press release went on to demand ‘free trade’, by which it meant ‘low or zero tariffs’. This would constitute the abandonment of a longstanding central pillar of Patriotic Front policy.

Partido Còrá leader Edison Bonaventuur asked Ms Jesurun, ‘why is it this government’s policy to discourage international investment in this country? How will the Directory restore global markets’ confidence in our credibility?’

Meche Jesurun responded by criticising Mr Bonaventuur’s ‘scaremongering’ rhetoric for ‘taking seriously what is clearly no more than careless rhetoric and special pleading by a minor interest group.’ The NHCC is not affiliated to the Hesperian National Chamber of Commerce, with which, according to law, each new business must register before opening.

‘Of course Hesperia is open for business,’ declared the Minister. ‘But we are not open to foreign diktats. Our tariff policy is designed to protect Hesperian labour and Hesperian capital from unfair foreign competition.’

Ms Jesurun cited research by the Institute of Political Economy at Lipsius University Haven, to the effect that free trade destroys infant industries, kills jobs and promotes inequality.

‘Hesperia is not lucky enough to be able to participate freely in world trade,’ the Institute’s head, Professor Ergilio Tjin-a-Kok, responded via Shoop call to Ñapa’s questions. ‘Unlike rich Nedernesia, with its capital-intensive industries, Hesperian producers would not survive direct competition on the word market without state support and protection.’

‘Of course,’ Prof Tjin-a-Kok continued, ‘protection is not in everybody’s interest. It usually benefits those with the best connections to government. Crony capitalism, to put it crudely. So it is appears that the NHCC lacks access to the pork barrel!’
 

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You are in the middle of a steamy Hesperian soap opera, where the two main characters have finally made it into a room together and, after a deep kiss, appear to be going for more, when, suddenly and without warning, the programme is cut.
All you see is a colour test card, the accompanying beeeeeeeeeeeeeep raking your ears like a nail on a blackboard. Cursing, you begin flipping through channels. But all the others are the same! You change the channel until you arrive at the only one airing anything…


Hesperia 1
Disclaimer: this programme contains political opinion.

I awor… e programa mas wak, mas apreciado, mas largu den pais:

Bon Dia Hesperia!

A drumroll sounds, followed by a trumpet and drums playing an upbeat salsa tune. Images flash by on screen of a shaven-headed, mocha-coloured man of average height, sporting a thin moustache, surrounded by fawning people in various settings, from farms and factories to the dancefloor—all framed by a spinning red Hesperian star.

The man is Torcuato Tasso Croes, president of the Hesperian Directory, and this is his weekly TV show.

Goddammit, you forgot: it’s Saturday afternoon, and that means it’s e presidente’s TV slot. And that can last for God knows how many hours—as long as he needs!

The format is of a talk show, with guests and an audience. Never in a studio, Bon Dia Hesperia is always on location. Today, it’s parkland, dotted with kwihi and jacaranda trees. In the distance stands a row of flats. One had recently been built, the middle was nearly finished and the final two were in the midst of construction.

After a shot of the audience, enthusiastically clapping, some shouting ‘Viva Hesperia! Viva Cuato!’, the camera cut to Cuato himself, sitting behind a desk, dressed in a guayabera with red and green pleats —Hesperia’s national colours.

Sitting to his left was a little girl, her black hair tied in pigtails.

Bon dia Hesperia! It’s is the fourteenth of June and we have an important guest here today! She actually came running to me! Your name’s Luella, isn’t it? How old are you, mi reina?’

The girl held up six little fingers. Her coffee-with-cream skin contrasted with the middle-aged man’s darker complexion.

‘Six years old! So you’re already going to school?’ The girl nodded. She didn’t seem shy at all. ‘And look at those pigtails. Who did them for you?’

‘My mom.’

‘And what’s her name, dushi?’

‘Nilda.’

‘Nilda! And she gave you something to bring along, didn’t she?’

Cuato held up a little tea tin. ‘Would you look at this beautiful little work of art? And what’s inside? Look, everyone, it’s a toucan!’ He held up a palm-sized plush toy with a big, rainbow-coloured beak. ‘What’s it called, little plum?’

‘Elis.’

‘Elis! And for who is this gift, mi vida?’

‘For Meche.’ Cuato’s seven-year-old daughter.

‘Oh, that’s so sweet of you, darling! She has a whole flock of toucans by now! What a lovely occasion for such a lovely gift, this Bon Dia Hesperia number 27! What’s that, honey?’

The girl mumbled something inaudible in the microphone.

‘There’s a birthday party? Who’s birthday? Your cousin’s? How old is he? Six? He’s becoming six?’ Cuato looked at the camera in mock indecision. ‘Oh dear, she just invited me to the party! What do I do, what do I do?’ The president made a show out of being surprised and confused. ‘I don’t think that’s something I’ll be able to today, little bird, but I promise I’ll send your cousin a gift. Where does he live? Far away, in San Nicolas? I promise it’ll arrive today. Where’s your mother?’

‘Over there!’

‘Over there. So, let’s see, you brought me a gift, you invited me to a party, I thank you, abo ta stima, you and all the boys and girls of Hesperia. God bless you and protect you. Go join your mother now, okay? Chau! Adios! Someone help the little girl join her mother, and watch the camera wires over there!’

After the girl had exited the camera’s field of vision, Cuato looked directly at it. ‘Kí dushi!’ he crowed. ‘A little gift and love. These are the things that, every day, make me love the heart of the Hesperian people and, above all, the future of Hesperia.

‘Yes, the future! Because this little lady’—the image cut to a soldier in fatigues handing the girl back to her radiant mother—‘with all her sunniness and beauty, she is Hesperia, she is the Hesperia of the twenty-first century! And it is for her and for that future that we are rebuilding Hesperia.’

Applause from the audience, as the camera zoomed in on the little girl with her mother, clapping enthusiastically, her eyes in the camera.

‘Yes, rebuilding Hesperia! Literally. Behind me you, Hesperians, can see, rising against the background of the Taratara, what I mean. New homes for the Hesperian people! Funded by the Housing and Development Cooperative, designed by Hesperian architects and Hesperian engineers, built by Hesperian builders, with Hesperian bricks and mortar, and Hesperian steel!

Mi kas, mi bida! That is what my padú always used to say. What is more important than a home of one’s own, a place to feel safe and to raise a family, to rest and feel whole? A safe home, that’s safe from leakage or fire or collapse, a clean home without cockroaches or rats? Don’t Luella and her mother, Nilda, deserve such a home?

‘I have given them such a home! And under the Mi Kas, Mi Bida programme, we are building a million more homes for working-class Hesperians, those who build and make and clean and grow and make sure this country runs at all, but who were never seen, who were never given their just say in the running of their own country!

‘By electing us, the Patriotic Front, you, Hesperians, have finally put an end to this! We have put an end to the profiteering pieties of the Partido Còrá, the dogmas of “free” trade, of a low wealth tax, of individualism, which only served to help the rich buy their villas and memberships in the country club!

Nos ta bai, Hesperia! We don’t need such division, such inequality among us. Let us go forth, and build a bright Hesperia of the future, a Hesperia built for all Hesperians, a Republic in the truest sense of the word, for the common wealth, the good of the common man! Nos mes por!’

By this time, you’ve moved onto the balcony, only tolerating Cuato’s monologue as background noise as you light up one of the cigars that Hesperia is famous for on the balcony. As the long narrow cylinder of dun-coloured tobacco leaves slowly burns, the programme continues.

Half a dozen more guests follow, including a sick old lady, a street vendor, a missionary in the barrios and more. It’s obvious you can forget about your telenovela. Maybe you ought to call Marioncita… I mean, you only just kicked Rosa out of your apartment before the H-drama started, but where Rosa is wild, Marioncita is methodical.

You forget all about the TV.
 

Hesperia

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The Six O'clock News
Radio Hesperia 1

Toot, toot, tooooooot.

Good evening Hesperia, this is Miralia Wolfschoon with the six o'clock news.

:arrow: The Federal Police are to commence an investigation into allegations of corruption surrounding the construction of the Second Mboiai Bridge over the river of that name, on the Aliança-Puerto Piar railway. This follows an injunction by federal investigative judge Pier Rutgersz, who has been investigating accusations that bribes were made by several companies, including Batelier Infra and Kapillac, to the Ministry of Public Works and Infrastructure, in order to secure lucrative contracts for the complex project. Opened in 2019, the Second Mboiai Bridge is a dual railway-road suspension bridge over a bend in the Mboiai River in a remote part of southern Hesperia. It was designed to connect the city of Puerto Piar and the lakelands more closely to the industrial heartland on the northern coast.
:arrow: The Beurs of Aliança rallied for the third day in a row, following news that the Jugol summit in Azraq has been successful in resolving the Silk Sea crisis peacefully. The biggest gains of the past days were made by Kapillac Industries, Credit Cunuceru, the Allied Merchants Bank, Chikitu and the TB Group, who made good the losses they had sustained in the preceding weeks of uncertainty over the situation in the Silk Sea. Many of Hesperia’s biggest trade partners are in this region, exposing the nation’s export champions to major risk.
:arrow: A major police presence is being mobilised in Aliança, in anticipation of Sunday’s Promé Dibishon match between defending champions and league table leaders Hubentut, and Propatria, who are in second place, trailing by six points. Known as E Klasiko, the derby between the two longstanding rivals from the capital is fiercely disputed, and has often been the scene of violent clashes among rival groups of ultras. Primo Maksimović, chief of police in the Federal District, did not mince words. ‘Fans can expect a game of footy. Hooligans and vandals can expect the baton and a sentence.’
:arrow: The weather. Dry and cool evening throughout the Republic, minimum temperatures of around 26°. Tomorrow will be another hot day in the Northeast, with maximum temperatures of 40° in the saliña. Aliança, much of the north coast and Gorea and Flaquea will see the quicksilver rise to between 31 and 33°, with some clouds over the islands. In the interior, rain showers in the morning, followed by dry and sunny weather with a maximum temperature of 33°. Humidity around 97%.

This was the six o’clock news, for the Sistema I am Miralia Wolfschoon. Next up is Idioma with Vera Pedro and Neves Delima.
 

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Cuato Snubbed By Other Hesperian States in Goodwill Tour
Uitkijk Heraut

Is the ‘goodwill’ tour of the Hesperian continent, announced by President Torcuato T. Croes of the Hesperian Directory over the weekend, a costly failure and an ‘embarrassment’ for the Republic? Critics would say so, following revelations that not all of the sister republics in the Hesperias even bothered to reply to the President’s offer of a visit.

Croes is scheduled to depart for Aresura tomorrow on an official visit to the island nation’s provisional government, the so-called Collectivist Congress. The visit is seen as a snub to the rival regime in Axifloa, which disputes rule of the archipelago, styling itself the legitimate Republic of Aresura. Croes will follow up his visit to Aresura with a diplomatic tour of Ambrosia and Sylvania, the DDI-aligned republics of the North.

Sources within the government and the People’s Junta revealed today that Croes’s itinerary was actually dramatically shortened from the original plan. Initially, the President was supposed to visit South Engellex, Beautancus, and the Vaquero Free State as well. Later, Johnston Isle was added to the list. But none of these governments even bothered to reply, according to the leak, which was revealed to the press by Guy Galama de Vries MHP (Còrá).

If true, the lack of interest abroad in Cuato’s state visit would be a major humiliation for the President and the Patriotic Front. Galama called it a ‘costly failure’ and claimed that ‘President Croes has embarrassed Hesperia before the world even before departure’.

Elected on a populist ticket, the tour of Greater Hesperia is Croes’s first step onto the international stage. The deafening silence in Elephant & Castle, Welmonton, the Vaquero and Johnston Isle indicates there is little appetite on the other side of the Gulf of Cassiopeia and the Nonestican Sea for Croes’s roughneck brand of economic nationalism and pied-piper politics.
 

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Ambrosian Department of State

Thaumantic Civilization remains asleep at the wheel while Democratic Defense Initiative nations drive forward to pick up the pieces of imperialism and colonialism. Ambrosia stands ready to welcome democratically elected partners from Hesperia today and into the next generation past Cuato. Freedom on this continent is a multi-generational and multi-cultural effort that transcends any one leader or state.
 

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Office of the Provisional Overseer of International Affairs
Presidential Palace - Daeva, Aresura

Provisional Collective Congress of Aresura
In the highest dignity on behalf of the Overseer-Colonel of Aresura
(Top Secret)(Secret)(Confidential)(Restricted)21 / 06 / 2020
Markings are in red. Unmarked documents are unclassified.

• • • • •

It is indeed regrettable that a significant portion of the Occidental continent has, apparently, chosen silence over partnership with a fellow Occidental republic. With that said however, I wish to pass along the reassurance that Overseer-Colonel Iōséph Konstantinos continues to anticipate the arrival of President Croes with unabated enthusiasm. He is resolved to ensure that, despite the decreased quantity of countries the honorable Hesperian President is scheduled to visit, conversely the quality of such remaining visits is bound to increase.

It is with such optimism that Overseer-Colonel Konstantinos, newly invested with the honor of being the first neighbor to welcome President Croes, is determined to prove that such optimism is not unfounded, and together the Collectivist Congress of Aresura and Hesperian Republic shall bring strengthened peace, prosperity, and partnership to the region as a whole.

Sincerely,
Captain Gregorios Notaras
Overseer of International Affairs

Peace, Prosperity, Partnership.

• • • • •
 
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Cuato to Aresurans: Why Aren't You Part of Hesperia?
Amanesé

On the first leg of his cross-continental goodwill tour, President Torcuato T. Croes immediately courted controversy with an offhand comment before a press conference welcoming him to the East Aresuran capital of Cofressa about the islands' complicated colonial and political history.

'I confess to not really understanding why Aresura isn't a part of Hesperia,' the President of the Directory responded to a question about what he knew about the offshore archipelago. 'I mean to say, Valk conquered all the others, why not Aresura too?'

Croes's Aresuran host, Colonel Joseph Konstantinos, quickly shut down follow-up questions to the gaffe with a curt remark that he wished to talk about the present, not the past.

The rest of Cuato's day-long visit to the divided nation appears to have passed without further issue. A ticker-tape parade down Cofressa's main roads attracted sizeable crowds, and discussions between Croes and Konstantinos about strengthening ties, promoting peace in the region and improving bilateral trade seem to have gone well. Croes also made the customary denunciation of the DDI-aligned West Aresura that East Aresuran leaders have come to expect of visiting Hesperian dignitaries.

'Aresura doesn't have a dictatorship, it has a foreign occupation,' he declared to a critical question from a Hesperian journalist (not part of his entourage) from the Telesperia network, owned by Osiandro Asad, a long-time opponent of Cuato and the PF. The President was referring to West Aresura, officially the Republic of Aresura, which disputes rule of the archipelago with East Aresura, officially the Provisional Collectivist Congress of Aresura.
 

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Cuato Brings Hesperian Beef to Ambrosian BBQ, But Otherwise Underlines Shared History and Ideals
De Avondster

On the second leg of his cross-continental tour, President Torcuato T. Croes avoided the off-the-cuff banter with the press in Aresura that caused controversy both at home and abroad while in the divided archipelago, and caused rumours to swirl that Sylvania would call off his visit, scheduled for tomorrow.

The President instead emphasised the history shared by Ambrosia and Hesperia, as 'nations of nations, assemblies of many liberated colonies into greater wholes that stand as living, breathing monuments to the ideals of independence and freedom that form the gift and the lesson of the New World to the Old.' Where Ambrosia was founded in 1708 by the four colonies of Engellachia, New Windhaven, Nova-Pays and Pithlachusetts, Hesperia was born in the fires of the Valkist Wars a century later, in which Salian, Maduran and Aurarian colonies were brought together by de Vereniger, Emperor Aeneas Valk.

There was one provocation at the reception for the President of the Hesperian Directory at the Ambrosian presidential ranch, albeit one apparently directed at beef gourmets. Bringing his own beef 'to the braai', as he called it, the President, sporting spurs, a ruana and a traditional turned Hesperian sombrero, invited his astonished hosts 'to try for themselves whose beef is best'.

Earlier, while touring the stables, Cuato had invited his Ambrosian colleague Robert Hirschfeld to compete 'in an international rodeo', remarking on the culture of equestrianism and herdsmanship shared by the Hesperian yaneru and the Ambrosian cowboy.

Overall, however, Cuato stuck to protocol. At their joint press conference, he expressed his hopes to President Hirschfeld that the two nations might resolve their differences and strengthen their bonds 'as Westernesser brother-nations'. He offered to reopen trade negotiations and declared himself 'open to security cooperation in the region'.

In the past, relations between Aliança and St Theosburg have regularly been tested by disagreements over trade, the political status of Aresura, and Ambrosia's close alignment to the DDI. The creation of the Westernesse Free Trade Area (WeFTA) was seen as a provocation in Hesperia, which was not invited.

Hesperia's steadfast support of the East Aresuran collectivist regime has been a persistent fly in the soup of better relations with St Theosburg. Ambrosia's increasingly close alignment with the DDI is in turn regarded with suspicion by the Patriotic Front (PF), the political coalition headed by Cuato, which has long favoured a policy of non-alignment and neutrality for the nations between the Thaumantic and the Implarian Oceans. The leftward turn taken by the PF with Cuato's landslide victory in the November 2019 elections further deepened the differences, as voters embraced Cuato's anti-free trade platform en masse.
 

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Cuato in Sylvania: I Have Secured International Peace
Parana-De Oceaan

The nervous excitement was palpable among the press corps this morning, awaiting the arrival of President Torcuato T. Croes of the Directory, who landed at Charleroi International Airport this morning aboard a regular Aerosperia commercial flight (Don Cuato makes a point out of traveling economy class). The President's dislike for protocol and populist, off-the-cuff style in both Aresura and Ambrosia, the previous stops on his transcontinental tour, had clearly caused irritation in Sylvania, and it was uncertain how well he would be received by the equally fiery President Ashley Breckenridge. Some colleagues were surely hoping for another diplomatic spat.

If so, they were disappointed, at least when it came to gaffes. Don Cuato and Mr Breckenridge stuck to protocol at the airport, and at their joint press conference later at the Continental Republic's presidential residence, the President of the Hesperian Directory (wearing a coat) did not go further than remarking he was 'surprised you even have summers here!'

Don Cuato did raise eyebrows, however, when he claimed that he had 'secured international peace' during private talks with his Sylvanian counterpart. Declaring his 'great admiration' for the Jugol Agreement that averted war between the DDI and the Implarian nation of Justosia last month, the Hesperian President explained that he had proposed to Mr Breckenridge to 'extend the disarmament initiative across the rest of the world... The DDI and Justosia, guided by the Emperor of @Azraq, set an example for all of us. Why don't we -- we here: Hesperia, Sylvania, hell, the whole West, the DDI! -- why don't we follow it?' Don Cuato also expressed his desire to meet the Azraqi Emperor, Tiirka Illah, in person.

It is unclear how serious Don Cuato's proposal is. Further questions were evaded, both by the Hesperian President and his colleague, Mr Breckenridge, who seemed as nonplussed as the gathered press. The Sylvanian President limited himself to simply stating that he 'looked forward to cooperating with Don Cuato and the Hesperian Republic further on the world stage'.

The agenda for the tête-à-tête between the two heads of government included no mention of disarmament. It revolved around matters of trade and migration, such as the controversial Buckley Immigration Bill in the Sylvanian Congress. Nonetheless, both a spokeswoman for the President's entourage, as well as Sylvanian representatives, did confirm to Parana that Don Cuato brought up the Jugol Agreement and worldwide disarmament with Mr Breckenridge.
 

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Cuato Braves Ogallala Cold to End Cross-Continental Tour
Defensor di Oraño

President Torcuato T. Croes faced a warm welcome in the biting winter cold of Ogallala, the capital of the antipodean Confederacy of Johnston Isle, where he arrived this morning following an overnight flight from Sylvania. Where he did not shy from controversy earlier in his transcontinental diplomatic tour and even launched a surprise peace plan in Charleroi, Cuato conducted himself with presidential dignity and unusual reserve. Hostile media, like the Uitkijk Heraut or Osiandro Asad's Telesperia media empire, quickly speculated that the President was concerned to end his journey on a positive and dignified note that, supposedly, had been absent so far.

Such noise notwithstanding, the last stop of Cuato's grand tour was for all intents and purposes a success, albeit a low-key one. He praised Johnston Isle as a responsible partner in the region, although he cautioned the island nation's population 'to avoid war in foreign lands, if you can' -- an oblique reference to the deployment of thousands of Johnstonian troops to distant Gallia, which once again seems to be descending into war.

Discussions behind closed doors with the Confederate government focused on economic matters, and Cuato reportedly offered the Johnstonian Chancellor reciprocal tariff reductions on key goods. Like all ODS member states, the Johnston Isle is suffering a financial and trade shock due to the recent sanctions on the Rurikgrad Pact, as well as Old-World tensions in general.

A joint declaration of the two leaders committed both nations to 'preserving the peace and independence of the Western Hemisphere', and to furthering economic and cultural ties, although it did not specify which.

Following the official part of his visit, the President also visited a cultural centre of the Hesperian diaspora in Ogallala, where, to the delight of those present, he played the tambú and danced the tumba. 'You can take a Hesperian out of Hesperia, but you cannot take Hesperia out of the Hesperians', he told our countrymen, to cheers and rapturous applause.

The President is scheduled to return to return to the Republic early tomorrow morning, as usual refusing to use Aeronautica 001 and instead flying Aerosperia economy class.
 
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