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The Bergen Times

Bergenheim

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Operation Moses Brings Hope, as War Expands

In a rare display of unity between the two political figures, Archchancellor Vogt and First Fist Tanya Degurechaff took a podium together in Midweis together to jointly announce the launch of Operation Moses, a massive pan-civillian effort to rescue as many civillian refugees as possible from Trivodnia.

While the land-borders remain fortified and closed for national security, the ports will open, if only temporarily, as the Bergenheim Navy supervises a mostly private effort to provide a means of evacuation for Trivodnians hoping to flee the war brought upon their homes by the Rurikgard Pact.

"Some might question this decision, given our efforts to perserve peace and maintain neutrality." Vogt acknowledged in her speech. "But we cannot, will not turn a blind eye to the suffering of the civillians in a friendly nation, however reckless her leadership has been. War, thus brought, is terrible, and we will do everything we reasonably can within the limitations of our neutrality to provide aid and comfort to the Trivodnian people."

First Fist Degurechaff also spoke, the first time she has publicly done so in a government capacity in seven months. "The Navy will not violate Trivodnian territorial waters, providing safe escort to the refugee ships only in the neutral, international parts of the Polesian Sea."

Questions about the need for naval mobilisation were evaded, but the typically forthright Tanya could not resist answering at least one question. "I give my word of honour, all those refugee ships will return safely. We will leave no one behind."


Peace March on Midweis

With the Pelasgian Empire experiencing unprecedented turmult, and even the Kingdom of Gunnland now invading Crotobaltislavonia under the guise of "peacekeeping operations", many are now clamouring for public peace talks be conducted now.

Solomon Lansky, head of the Marxist-Leninovist Party for Bergenheim, has formed a cross-party Peace Faction, arguing that Bergenheim's neutrality and peace is too important to leave in the hands of the current National Unity Government or the "mad dog warlord" it "refuses to put down".

A Peace March on Midweis is planned for this coming saturday, with an estimated 15,000 scheduled to attend. The Midweis Constabulary has warned that with the national draft in place, it does not have enough officers to guarantee full route coverage, should hawkish counter-protestors make an appearance.

"If the blood-mad far right want to protest a peaceful march in the name of peace, they are welcome to show us all their true colours. Bergenheim has been a peaceful nation for hundreds of years. The Nationalists with their dreams of crusades will not threaten all our ancestors have worked for." Solomon Lansky thundered.

Questions about his own neutrality were similarly evaded, but twatter has been forced to temporarily suspend thousands of accounts registered in Bergenheim, as the political tension between left and right grows increasingly tense.

Many now wonder if the World War will start in Bergenheim without need for foreign aggression.
 

Bergenheim

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Der Glöckner
Opinion Pieces by Werner Neumann
Views expressed may not necessarily reflect the Bergen Times


"The enemy is fear. We think it is hate, but it is fear." -Proverb of the Week


The past few months have been an extraordinary time for us all. In this very column I have sought, with my limited powers as a journalist, to inform, to educate, and to persuade you, the reader, about the state of affairs in our homeland. What began as simply run of the mill mediocre governance from partisans has long since tragically mutated into a crisis that threatens both our external and internal security.

Yet as the Nationalists thunder their battle-cries in tabloids and on radio stations, their pint-sized general taking the stage once more, and as the Communists and their lackeys take to the streets to demand peace at any cost, it is tempting to lose sight of the true enemy.

The true enemy, dear readers, is one I am as guilty of strengthening as anyone else. The true enemy is fear. We lose sight of this common foe at our mortal peril. It is not hatred or bad economics or liberal mediocrity that threatens us all, but the fears we all share for the security of our futures, for our children's futures. We must be vigilant not for the things that frighten us, but for the things that our fear might compel us to do.

For two hundred years and then some, the current Republic of Bergenheim has endured. It has not always been free, and it has not always been fair. But it has always had the republican aspirations and hopes of its people at its very center, and through crisis after crisis, century after century, it has been this wellspring that has renewed our system, and our faith in it.

I speak now to the silent majority, who think of themselves neither as nationalist nor communist, liberal or christian democrat, but rather simply as people. You who simply wish to fulfil the enlightenment dreams of this Republic's founders, who rejected both the radical economics and fanatical militarism of the Darkenseelers and their Jacobin ilk.

The purpose of this Republic, the purpose of its politics, the purpose of its leaders and armies, is to serve you, the people.
And We, the People, have always asked it to serve our natural interests- to let us live, let live, and pursue happiness in our own way, in our own time.

As the storms of war shroud our world, and the clouds darken our mountain homes, we should always remember this. We are not a Republic Against Fear. We are a Republic For Hope. Storms Pass. Nightmares end. But Hope, Hope is Eternal.
 

Bergenheim

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++SPECIAL BERGENHEIM NEWS NETWORK BROADCAST++

Please do not adjust your set. This is a breaking news broadcast from BNTV. Your normal programming will resume momentarily. This is a breaking news broadcast....

Bitte passen Sie Ihr Set nicht an. Dies ist eine Eilmeldung von BNTV. Ihre normale Programmierung wird kurz fortgesetzt. Dies ist eine Eilmeldung....
(Strains of "Rufst Du, Mein Vaterland, play in the background.)

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming with an important breaking news story. We go live now to reporters in Occitania, who have confirmed that the Serenien Army has begun a massive assault, and appears to have deployed chemical weapons.

What follows may be distressing viewing.

(The screen flashes the BNTV logo, the waving flag of Bergenheim, and then cuts to live feed of a harrowed, worn looking reporter in a flak jacket standing on an Occitanian hillside. In the distance can be seen flashes of gunfire and heavy artillery bombardment.)

I'm standing here on the outskirts of where a fierce battle has been raging between the Serenien Army and the Occitanian Defenders on the Asceni River. We have disturbing reports coming in of the widespread use of chemical weapons. The first casualties are being transported back here, we will soon see for ourselves if this is true.

(Feed cuts back to studio. Newscaster's expression is grave.)

If these reports are accurate, it would represent the first mass use of chemical weapons in warfare since the 1950s. The Trier Concordat also posesses biochemical weapons of mass destruction, and if the Serenien use of these weapons is confirmed, it represents a serious escalation of an already ruinous conflict.

We have here Colonel Muller from the Bergenheim Volkswehr. Colonel, what does this development signify?

First of all, I wish to address the concerns of your viewers at home. These chemical weapons, if they were indeed used, were used purely against millitary targets, and there is no reason to suggest they will linger or in anyway affect any of the local wildlife or civillians in the area.

Colonel, thats a strong statement. Coming on the heels of the use of napalm and phosphorous weapons against the city of Viasinde, do you think Serenierre is signalling its intention to disregard common international convention and wage total war against the populace of Occitania?

That depends. It seems likely that this weapon was used strategically, as part of a plan to break the Occitanian Army, which now appears to be encircled, and at grave risk of being defeated in detail. We have seen no indication of Serenierre or the Rurikgard Pact being willing to use such weapons indiscriminately in built up areas.

Colonel, I'm sure thats cold comfort for our viewers at home. What does this represent to the possibility of peace talks in Midweis? Should Bergenheim take steps to safeguard iself?

Those are some very alarmist questions. Quite frankly I have no authority to speak on the conference in Midweis, or its attempts to broker a peace settlement. But I can assure all our viewers that Bergenheim is taking every step to safeguard itself. We have thousands of air raid shelters, tens of thousands of private bunkers, and hundreds of thousands of standardised gas masks. We are also still neutral in the conflict, and very likely to remain so. But I remind all viewers that if they are concerned the Volkswehr conducts Open Participation Civic Drills every other Sunday. This will increase to every sunday. Every man, woman and child is welcome to come.

Thank you, Colonel. We return now to breaking coverage of the suspected chemical attack on the Aceni River...
 

Serenierre

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Elisabeth smiled. Leave it to the neutrals to have an opinion on everything but to act on nothing. The television broadcast amused her somewhat. The journalist was far too animated for his own good and, in fact, seemed rather pleased to be reporting such momentous news. Obviously, she thought, his career would never be the same after this. Her cat jumped onto her lap and she stroked her chin, to which it purred.
---
Commissariat for External Relations

The reports from the Bergen press fail to take into account the human rights violations occurring in Occitania at the hand of the feudal regime posing as a responsible member of the international community. The Occitanian government has allowed children to be used as soldiers in their war against the Serenien state and have militarized their civilian populace beyond the rational and reasonable grounds of humanity.

The République Populaire has done its utmost to maintain standard protocols and policy when it comes to the conduct of the Military however, the monarcho-capitalist bourgeoisie remain adamant to hide their own failings.

BERNARD LAVOSNIER || COMMISSAR
 

Gunnland

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[public statement]
I am greatly disquieted by news that the Republic of Sereniérre has used chemical weapons in Occitania. I have instructed Foreign Secretary Larkin to raise the issue with the international community at the Midweis Conference. The use of chemical weapons is never justified.

If the Serenien allegations about Occitan child soldiers are indeed true, the idea that chemical weapons may have been used against conscript children is deeply disturbing to me.

Jul. R.
Julian REGINA GUNNORUM
 

Bergenheim

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An Empire Broken? Bomb Blast Kills Hope of Peace

Hopes and prayers of peace in Himyar were shattered as a bomb-blast killed dozens and shattered peace negiotiations in the [Pelasgian Empire today. Amongst those feared dead are the Emperor and his main political rival, the Grand Logothete. While martial law has been imposed and a regency proclaimed, the bombing is unlikely to bring the divided factions together, but threatens to escalate the schism now tearing one of the world's oldest empires apart.

While expressions of solidarity and condemnation of such terrorism have flooded in from across the world, the explosion opens a new chapter in the ongoing World War, hitherto confined to bloody but relatively static symmetric warfare between nation-states, now opening up to include the chaotic and terrifying prospect of political terror.

While those responsible for the bombing are unknown, the relative ease with which such a devestating strike was conducted can only force leaders and governments around the world to once again strengthen themselves against threats both internal and external.

Solomon Slandered, as Anti-Tensions Act Proposed

After the success of the March for Neutrality, many were unsuprised by the speed and strength of an anonymous defamation campaign that began with viral SMS messaging and bill-boards, seeking to expose and defame the notorious socialist for his self-interested stance in campaigning for neutrality.

But the size, speed and strength of the campaign may have backfired on its anonymous sponsors, as grass-roots support for the controversial academic seems to only have strengthened, with many on the internet sharing memes about the "Trier Yids" trying to quell democracy with their "shekels" once again.

With political discourse now spilling out from the message boards into the mobile phones and streets of Bergenheim, and with the spectre of international terrorism on the horizon, the National Unity Government has proposed to bring in a raft of legislation known as the "Anti-Tensions Act", which proposes that stability, unity and civility must be upheld in such trying times, and creates a category of proscribed "tense speech", a vague term for any communications online or in print media that could be found to inflame tensions or cause "undue controversy".

The Act itself has provoked furious reaction, with the pro-Neutrality lobby rallying around another controversial figure, Bergenheimer Billionaire Ari Solaire, who described this as a "tyrant's law" and promised to fight "bad money" with "good money" and put his own support behind Lansky and the March for Neutrality.

In what has become standard practice once again for a Vogt Administration, the National Unity Government refused to comment on new media controversies, but did promise that the Anti-Tensions Act would not be rushed, but undergo the full democratic process.
 

Bergenheim

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Bergen Times, News Roundup
Breaking Stories from the Last 24 Hours

  • First Fist Lotti Degurechaff announces intention to resign from her post on December 31st, 2018. Speculation runs rampant about who a likely replacement would be. Cited reason for resignation is exhaustion and a desire to spend time focusing on family matters. Rumours fly about pressure from liberal establishment who dislike her nationalist icon status.
  • National Police Committee meets to discuss plans to form a Federal Police Force to combat organised crime, despite long-standing animosity to the idea from the Cantons.
  • Ben-Aharon Group freezes its assets ahead of a planned audit, as more financial firms seem likely to fall to ongoing Trivodnian Debt Crisis.
  • Fabrien-Neu interviews outspoken singer/musician/songwriter Emilie Fisher about her new song She Makes Archchancellor, and her leftist views on female engagement in politics. She specifically called out the First Fist for "letting her sisters down" and allowing the right to use her. "Internalised Misogyny is real." She is quoted as saying.
  • Sports Season is in full swing. Sports stuff is happening. Lotsa sports.
 

Bergenheim

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Oktoberfest Tourism aids Ailing Economy

Bergenheim experiences a welcome injection of revenue into the economy with another successful Oktoberfest season, with estimates suggesting that as much as 3 Billion Marks worth of business will be done in bars, shops, clubs and beer-halls across the nation in the last week of October alone.

While not as crucial as the Christmas shopping season, the Oktoberfest Boost has become an increasingly vital one for the Republic's Small-Medium Enterprises, who rely on the fresh intake of tourist money to offset loss periods experienced earlier in the year.

This news is surely most welcome to those who have lost money with Stonecastle Finance, the ailing equity firm that despite shopping around for foreign buyers seems doomed for Bankruptcy or an 11th Hour national bailout.

"Bergenheim is still a robust economy. No one will have a ruined Christmas this year, come war, recession or hacker-men." declared the First Secretary of the Treasury. "The Budget we plan to unveil in 2019 will shift priority away from defence, and back to the pledges made in election season."

Oktoberfest is a popular Germanic holiday celebrated outside of Bergenheim, but the Mountain Republic has done much to boost its identification with that, particularly by advertising luxury chocolates and mountainwear fashion in conjunction with the holiday.

Movie Review: Major Storm III, popcorn pop culture blitz bombs with critics
Three Thumbs Out of Five

The ever-popular vaudeville comedy/action movie thriller series Major Storm debuted its third movie this wednesday, premiering to packed crowds of proletariat popcorn-munchers and universal disdain from more professional critics.

The ever vulgar, deeply politicaly uncorrect comedy-action drama pits its pithy hero against the topical forces of international communism, opening its movie with the blonde, sunglasses wearing macho warrior bursting into a Rurikgard Pact summit(using a cowering, cowardly, senile Eiffelander minister as a bullet shield) and proceeds to deliver vicarious ultraviolence against cariactures of the heads of the various communist countries, notably culminating in the muscle-bound protagonist delivering a knock-out blow to a zombie version of Leninov himself.

While such low-brow jingoism is popular enough with the masses, critics wonder at why taxpayer's money is being wasted with Art Grants to the franchises' controversial director, Uve Shtoll. Shtoll has made a name for himself in abusing cultural grants and inheritance tax laws to fund the production of a slew of crass, violent, and juvenile movies that typically feature grotesquely masculine square-jawed heroes punching their way through pastiches of popular problems.

Major Storm II: Afterbirth was even banned for a short period, for containing scenes where the titular hero invades an abortion clinic full of vampire feminists, to perform the proceedure himself, with his trusty combat knife. Although the scene was cut from theatrical release, it remains popular online, and DVD sales for the Director's Cut continue to be high.

While there is of course plenty of space in the republic for such populist dreck to sit alongside worthier works, there remains concern that the growing popularity of these films may negatively effect the high cultural reputation Bergenheim seeks to cultivate and maintain abroad.

That said, while most critics will be avoiding this movie, I for one will be turning my brain off, and enjoying the cinematic whole-sale slaughter of racial and political caricatures of current international "baddies".
 

Bergenheim

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Der Glockner
Opinion Pieces by Werner Neumann
Views expressed may not necessarily reflect the Bergen Times

"When the mouth rots, all thats left is to suck." -Proverb of the Week

A year on, and much has changed, while nothing has changed at all. The Vogt Administration managed to downgrade- or upgrade, depending on your perspective- its character and stance from inept and lackluster to wildly reactionary and passive as it was buffeted by the great events that shook our world this year.

While Arch Chancellor Sigrid Vogt sought to define herself as a feminist and a liberal, her floundering rule has been characterised by desperate and anti-climactic foreign policy initiatives, while her right-wing nationalist minister of defence managed to achieve an unprecedented level of national and international attention, despite giving few public appearances.

Prior to the Christmas crisis, I compared the Archchancellor to a senile patient with tooth-rot, mindlessly waiting for someone else to pull the rot. Now her and her administration have been rendered toothless, and indeed, the health of the republic itself has been brought into question.

In this column, we lamented the pain the patient will experience on waking. But now it is genuinely in question whether the patient will wake at all. A tooth-rot of an administration has turned into a powerless, lame-duck administration.

Thwarted at every turn in its attempts to assert any influence or control over events in Gallo-Germania, the administration is now surely staring down a long winter of discontent, as the economy teeters on recession and domestic opposition only grows and rumbles.

With Burgher elections occurring next year in Summer, it would surely be impressive if the Vogt Administration managed to accomplish any major domestic iniatitives before election season. But it is surely a worrying sign for the times if the best an elected administration can hope for is small domestic victories.

Because in a world where old ways of working are crumbling or being torn down, to continue on as we always have is not just injurious to Vogt and her faction, but to the people of the Republic itself.
 

Bergenheim

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Bergen Times, News Roundup
Breaking Stories from the Last 24 Hours


  • Archchancellor Vogt manages to push through her first real Tax Cuts, reducing the burdens on the elderly and large families ahead of the Christmas shopping season. Efforts to increase spending and assist the most vulnerable of society will be approved on a Canton-by-Canton basis.
  • Massacre at Valhalla Night-Club in Yharnam- masked gunmen assault the notorious night-spot and seemed to target the staff and security in general. Over twenty confirmed dead, with dozens seriously injured. One gunman was killed at the scene, his identity has yet to be released to the public.
  • Stonecastle Finance finalises plans for the buyout by an Aurarian equity group. Hundreds of jobs feared at risk in Midweis financial sector.
  • Farmer Johan Saves Christmas bombs at the box office. Critics call it "one of the worst christmas movies ever". Its heavy reliance on slapstick and grossly offensive national stereotyping of Elbeners is simply no longer to moviegoer's tastes.
  • The Old Hunters of Yharnam hold a quiet memorial ceremony for the fallen of past wars, including Bergenheim's last official war, the Crotobaltislavonian War of 1889. "Peace has never been more fragile, and remembrance never more important."
 

Bergenheim

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AIT buys Stonecastle, Protests in Midweis

After weeks of rumours and uncertainty, it has now been confirmed that Stonecastle Finance, and by extension a significant portion of Bergenheim's largest Bank, has now been purchased by the Aurarine International Trust.

Signing off on the historic multi-billion mark deal, the First Secretary of the Treasury Daniel Cohen spoke directly to assauge the fears of both the market and the public. "This deal marks the beginning of the end for uncertainty. The Trivodnian Debt will be liquidated, and our banks will remain strong and stable. There will be no need for further default."

Many were more alarmed than reassured by Cohen's confident words, as the full extent of the debt is still uncertain. While the Ben-Aharon Group seems to have saved itself with generous and anonymous jewish angel investors, other Bergenheim institutions that were caught by the fall of Trivodnia remain in a perilous position.

Shyster Financial Services seems likely to enter Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, after a failed attempt to sell off all its toxic CDOs was detected in Mid-September by government watch-dogs. Had they been successful the sell-off could have tipped the nation fully into recession and mass panic. The CEO of SFS, Konrad Bachmann, will likely face prosecution for attempting to perpetrate grand fraud.

Despite these stern measures however, the news that AIT will be bailing out Bergenheim's oldest and largest bank was not welcomed by all. Both nationalist and anarchist groups marched on Midweis to protest the buyout, for different reasons. Clashes between the two groups in the Financial District were narrowly avoided by deployment of riot police.



Federal Financial Police Formed, named Reichspolizei

For over a century the Cantons of the Republic have fiercely opposed efforts to create an autonomous, federal police force beholden only to the Administration in Midweis, rather than the Burghers and Cantonal authorities that oversee the various seperate Constabularies of Bergenheim. Yet today, in the wake of efforts to avoid recession, the Cantons finally reluctantly supported a move to form a federal police force, on the proviso that it confine itself purely to "white-collar" crime, such as grand fraud and international embezzlement.

The newly formed "Reichspolizei" will be a small, specialised force of around fifty-four personnel, mostly professional auditors and accountants, who will investigate firms both small and large to ensure compliance with Republic Law. If force is required for seizure of assets, arrests or raids, the Reichspolizei will still have to rely on Constabulary personnel as deputies.

This is a bold and striking step, and with deepening drug-related crime in the Yharnam and Midweis Cantons, many see this as simply the beginning of a slippery slop towards a Bundespolizei to tackle these far graver crimes, in time.

For now, many wait to see the efficacy of the new Reichspolizei, as they begin their first day of operations on the same day AIT bails out Bergenheim's biggest ailing bank.
 

Oneida

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The Aurarine International Trust
Office of Communications
Official Release: Today is cause for celebration as the finalization of the agreement between Stonecastle Finance and the Aurarine International Trust. This agreement with ensure that Bergen banking and finances continue to move smoothly in the wake of the Gallo-Germanian Tragedy.

Our organization realizes the cultural implications of such an agreement and we would like to reassure the people of Bergenheim that the agreement in place will serve only as a benefit to the Bergen and Aurarian peoples. The future is bright and we are excited to pursue new avenues of growth, together.
 

Bergenheim

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Bergen Times, News Roundup
Breaking Stories from the Last 24 Hours


  • The House of Burghers passes a Resolution condemning the Kingdom of Elbe for its mistreatment of a religious minority with threats of cruel and barbaric punishment. Sanctions will be imposed for a period of no less than six months unless assurances are given for a more humane sentence.
  • Archbishop Kreisler blasts Elbe for its laxity and lack of sophistication in combating heresy. "The stake didn't work seven hundred years ago, it won't work now." Suggests they try reading books in incendiary speech from Midweis Pulpit. "Assuming they don't want to burn those too."
  • Movie version of popular Bergenheim stage musical "The Snow Queen" to debut shortly before Christmas. Parents already bracing for onslaught of merchandise.
  • Mazidian Sport of Courtball starting to catch on in local cultural exchange events at Bergenheim schools. Tamer rules that don't involve ritual sacrifice or humiliation for losing teams are decried by purists and Mazidian representatives alike.
  • Yharnam guarantees safety of jewish communities as Hannukah approaches. "All our police will be very busy keeping a stern eye on Jewish cultural events and communities at this time of ethnic tension."
 

Bergenheim

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A Fallen Leader, A Hope for Peace

The assassinated president of Crotobaltislavonia was buried with much state ceremony today, as prominent figures within the Assembly were joined by representatives from several nations to express grief at the killing.

To many it may seem strange that such a solemn and bloody event should carry with it such overtones of hope, but for the first time in a long time it seems as if there is real will now to address the long-standing tensions that have gripped the troubled nation.

Attending in person, the First Hand Angela struck a melancholic tone, speaking for the Vogt Administration and many others with a fervent call for both peace and justice.

"We have come close to war many times with our neighbour and their allies in the past year alone. It is time we stopped flinching in fear, hiding behind our borders, be they geographic or mental. Now is the time to extend a hand of peace to Crotobaltislavonia."

This sentiment of reapprochement and reconcillation seems to be spreading, and there is much talk in Midweis now of relaxing long-held, long-guarded restrictions on all forms of trade, investment and interaction with the slavic state.

"The ongoing deportations and violence against Jews is a serious issue that must be addressed before any rapprochement can be contemplated." confirmed Chancellor Sheev Kessler of the Midgard Canton, himself a Jewish-Germanian. "The Vogt Administration has acted unilaterally too much and on too many crucial issues, even when it had formed a National Unity Government. Its time the Cantons were allowed a say on these matters."

While such talk continues, the arduous duty of continuing to maintain a strong, secure border against a never-ending trickle of refugees and aslyum-seekers remains the shared responsibility of the Border Guard and the Army together. While such arrangements were viewed with deep suspicion six months ago, it seems this has become a new normal, even as the camps are emptied, only to be filled again with displaced jewish people from Orlitz-Slavonia.

On this matter, the Vogt Administration remains steadfastly silent.

Crisis in Engellex, Media Communications Disrupted

While mostly ignored by many in Bergenheim, including the Vogt Administration, the ongoing Cantignia-Engellex crisis has entered a new and suprising phase, with the resignation of the First Republic's prominent Lady Henrietta, and the seemingly spontaenous outbreak of political activism and disruptive propaganda actions, online and via other media sources.

As the heart of much of the world's server-banks, there was great nervousness on twatter and nation-wide about the security of the Internet itself, which has become such an integral part of Bergener life and business. While Midweis maintains some small backup server farms, if the main ERIN databanks in Dulwich and elsewhere were to be disrupted, it could cause global societal and economic chaos.

"This Bloody Momentum movement may have legitimate grievances, and a desire for change in the First Republic. " conceded a political expert from the University of Midweis. "But the threat it poses to our global information infrastructure should not be underestimated."

An online petition for a united front against these "hackers on steroids" gathered over 100,000 signatures in a few hours, and it will likely be debated by the House of Burghers tomorrow.
 
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